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BO r CUT WITH
THE TNfOMK FflOM THE BF.qtlESiT r>K

Jons Amorv Lowelt.,
Class of tSi:v

' Ij^ls Attid i« $3O|0dD, mud nfjts income three

quufters phalJ be ^iTK^t fnr book.H and one

ffuat^er h* idded to the princfpuJ.

Received 3

a ltA.6^ [ f

it^.

THE CRUISE OF

H.M.S. "BACCHANTE.'

1879—1882.

!i\i

dbe €tttiit of #(r mait6tR'6 i^if

"BACCHANTE"

1879—1882.

CotnptleU from

THE PRIVATE JOURNALS, LETTERS, AND NOTE-BOOKS OF

PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR '

PRINCE GEORGE, OF WALES,

WITH ADDITIONS BY JOHN N, D ALTON,

Vol. L— the WEST AND THE SOUTH.

THE MEDITERRANEAN— TENERIFFE— WEST INDIES— BERMUDAS—

VIGO— FERROL-ST. VINCENT— THE PLATE- FALKLAND

ISLANDS— CAPE OF GOOD HOPE-AUSTRALIA— FIJI.

* Qui desoendnnt maro in navibuB, ^

Facientes opentionem in aquis multis,
Ipsi Tidenint opera Domini
£t mirabilia ^xu in profundo.
Conflteantnr Domino miBericordlae ejus et mirabilia ejoa filiis hominam.

— Ps. evil. 28, 24, 31.

MACMILLAN AND CO.

1886.

r»« night oj Tratulation mnd Refroduetion i$ Rettrved,

ih.j

JUL 301886

Richard Clat h Soks,

BRBAD STREET HILT^ LONDON,

Bungay, Suffolk.

^0 tbc ^uccn

THESE JOURNALS ARE WITH PERMISSION

BY HER majesty's AFFECTIONATE AND DUTIFUL GRANDSONS

ALBERT YICTOR C. EDWARD
GEORGE FREDERICK E. ALBERT.

PREFACE.

This account of the three years' cruise of H.M.S. Bacchante makes
no pretension to literary form. Such as it is, it has been put
together at the desire of their Royal Highnesses the Prince
and Princess of Wales, who have intrusted the private journals,
letters, and other papers of their sons to me for this purpose.
Though three years have gone by since the ship was paid ofiF, it
is only within the last few months that I have been free or had
leisure to arrange the material for publication.

Both Princes kept very regular diaries all the time they were
away from home : these, written up every evening before turning
in, both at sea and ashore, wherever they hnppened to be stay-
ing— whether it was beneath the roof of diflFerent Government
Houses, or out in the bush, on the Pampas, in Japanese temples,
or Chinese house-boats ; whether up the Nile, or beneath their
tents in Syria, form naturally the groundwork of the whole. As
might naturally be expected, their pages become much fuller
towards the end of the three years than they are at the beginning.
Those portions especially which cover the time the Princes were
in Egypt and Palestine were written out afterwards from rough
jottings and notes made on horseback, or during the mid-day
siesta, from what Brugsch Bey or Captain Conder had been
telling them when face to face with the objects visited. I have
also drawn largely upon the contents of letters. These were
often written against time and in haste to catch the mail. But
such passages as I have extracted from them I have thought

viii PREFACE.

it best to leave as they were first penned, however rough they
might appear, rather than smooth them down in cold blood :
for thus they convey a truer representation of the immediate
impression produced by the place or circumstance described.

With the private journals and letters that record the passing
sensation of the day or hour, I have embodied a good deal
from certain note-books in which the Princes entered at their
leisure the substance of much which they read concerning the
countries visited, or learnt in conversation from those with whom
they were specially privileged to be brought into contact from
time to time. Where such entries refer to figures and statistics
I have endeavoured to correct them up to date. It would be
absurd to imagine that two young men of their respective ages
should take in fully all the information given respecting the
various places and people they saw, as older persons might have
done. But as these pages will testify, several clear impressions
were produced on their minds at each port, which will remain
till their dying day; and foremost among these is the vivid
remembrance of what they saw in Australia, where the interest
they evinced in diflferent matters connected with the political and
commercial development of that portion of a United and Greater
Britain was most keen.

My own additions are marked ofif in square brackets. They
can readily be skipped by those who prefer to read continuously
the more descriptive narrative portion of the text.

In an account that covers so wide an extent of ground, and
deals with so many topics, it would be vain to expect that no
mistakes or errors should be discovered by specialists. But I
venture to hope that there are not many of a gross character.
The proof-sheets of the portions relating to Japan have been
read by Mr. Ernest Satow, C.M.G. ; the Straits Settlements by
Sir Frederic Weld, G.C.M.G., and the Hon. Clementi Smith ;
Egypt by Emil Brugsch Bey ; Palestine by Captain Conder, R.E. ;
Fiji by Sir William des Voeux, K.C.M.G. ; the Cape and Australia
by two gentlemen lately resident in and thoroughly conversant
with both those countries. All these friends were good enough

PREFACE. ix

to make valuable suggestions and additions to the Princes'
memoranda, which served to supplement the result of the Princes*
own observations, and which have greatly conduced to make the
following account accurate and trustworthy, as far as actual
facts are concerned : but with the opinions expressed or con-
clusions drawn from such facts it would be unfair in any way
to identify them. Wherever, as in the case of the West Indies
or South Africa, it was impossible to avoid touching on subjects
that still form matter of rather a lively controversy, a strenuous
endeavour has been made to give both sides of the question, as
far as possible in the very words used by their several advocates,
and these have been drawn exclusively from Blue Books and
other official sources. With two exceptions no names have been
introduced.

The charts tracing the Bacchante's course from port to port are
such as every midshipman in the service is bound to draw in his
log-book, and show to the captain from week to week. They are
all drawn on Mercator's projection. Each degree measured ver-
tically off the side of the chart represents for practical purposes
sixty miles. These charts, as well as the extracts from the Princes'
logs appended to them, have been kindly looked over by Lieu-
tenants F. B. Henderson and Evelyn Le Marchant, R.N. The
track of the Bacchante on the large chart was laid down by
Lieutenant H. Roxby, R.N., who has also been good enough to
revise the accoQnt of the ship's mishap off Cape Leuwin (vol. i.
pp. 439-450). The larger illustrations are taken from photographs ;
most of the smaller ones from sketches made by Lieutenant Percy
Scott, R.N. ; one in vol. i p. 204, by Mr. Triggs, assistant engineer;
two others by Lieutenant Basset, R.N., one in vol. i. p. 453, and
the other vol. ii. p. 764. The sketch map of the Syrian tour, the
plan of Jerusalem, and the mosque at Hebron were drawn by
Captain Conder.

Although probably the portion of this book which will be
read by the general public with most interest is that which
refers to the Princes' visits to the British Colonies, and to foreign
countries, yet if anything like a true notion of the cruise, its

X PREFACE.

objects and its results, is to be obtained, it must be borne in mind
that the time really spent at sea was of no. less importance to the
Princes themselves. At sea during the longer cruises day follows
day and week week with a regularity which, read of, is suggestive
of monotony ; but it seems monotonous only to those who have
few resources in their own minds or who have never been
to sea in a man-of-war. There each day has its own routine;
and each hour of each day should find every one ready and
prepared for the particular duty appropriate to that branch
of the service to which he may belong. This regularity and free-
dom from all outside interruption was just what was required in
the case of the two Princes for purposes of school and study,
as well as for instruction in a sailor s duties. The period spent at
sea was to the Princes the equivalent of a schoolboy's ordinary life ;
the holiday time was represented by the occasions on which they
were away from the ship on leave, or when they went up country.
When H.R.H. the Prince of Wales determined to send his
sons to sea, it was chiefly with a view to the menial and moral
training that they would receive as midshipmen in Her Majesty's
navy. In every one of the Queen's ships each officer, man,
and boy has his special and individual duties to perform every
hour of the day and night, with a routine that should be as precise
and unvarying as clockwork. The sense of responsibility on the
part of a junior or petty officer for the men, however few they
may be, intrusted to his charge, and the habit of implicit and
instant obedience to seniors that is brought out and inculcated by
the naval service soon become to all in the ship a second nature ;
and every soul on board, cut oflf for a considerable time from all
connection with the outer world, is welded together into an attached
community, each grade of which is dependent in well-ordered
method on the others.

As long as they were on board ship the Princes were treated
exactly like the other midshipmen, and performed all the duties
which usually fall to their lot : they took their turn in all weathers
by day or night at watch-keeping and going aloft, at sail drill, or
boat duty. There was no difference, not even the slightest, of any

PREFACE. xi

sort or kind made between them and their gunroom messmates.
Thus they were taught seamanship by the first lieutenant, the
Hon, H. G. Curzon-Howe, and gunnery by the gunnery lieutenant,
Mr. C. H. Adair. Their mathematical studies were entirely in
the hands of Mr. John W. Lawless, their naval instructor, and
they read French with Mr. G, Sceales. To the captain, Lord
Charles Scott, belonged of course the supervision and manage-
ment of all these, as well as of everything that appertained to
their life on board ship. My duties as governor in charge of
the Princes began when they went on shore, and always ended
when they came on board again as midshipmen, except that I was
responsible to their parents for their general education.

The Admiralty kindly permitted my name to be borne on the
ship's books as acting chaplain for temporary service during the
whole period of the BaccharUe^s commission : and for the honour
thus done me I shall ever feel deeply grateful to their lordships.
The performance of the duties of that office and the oppor-
tunities thus afforded for establishing intimate relations between
myself and each man and boy in the ship gave me the most real
instruction, and the three years thus spent afloat as chaplain in
Her Majesty's naval service I shall always regard as among the
happiest in my life.

JOHN NEALE DALTON.

H.M.S. "BACCHANTE."

The Bacchante*s extreme length over all was 807 feet (between perpendiculars
280 feet), her extreme breadth 45^ feet, depth of hold 15 feet 7 inches, draught of
water aft 23 feet 9 inches, and forward 20 feet 9 inches. She carried 400 tons of coal
(and could stow at a pinch 150 tons more). The indicated horse-power of her engines
was 5,250. Her armament on the upper deck was two 4i-ton muzzle-loading gims,
and on the main deck twelve of the same, six each side, with the addition of two
64-pounders in the captain's cabin. She was also armed with Whitehead torpedoes, '
and carried four Nordenfcldt's machine guns. Each of the 4i-ton guns had a battering
charge of 22 lbs. of powder, and a full charge of 14 lbs., and the average weight of
the projectile diseharged (whether chilled shot or shell, common or double) was
150 lbs., and the total weight of the broadside was 12} cwt., or a little over half a
ton. This would be comparatively useless against the sides of an ironclad, but as
the ship was built as a fast steaming cruiser, she was not intended to be regularly
engaged against such.

The Bacchante carried 47 tons of fresh water in 57 tanksj which was the full
supply for aU purposes on ship board during a period of twenty days ; during her
commission every drop of fresh water used on board was condensed ; thus the
possibility of ever using any contaminated shore supply was avoided.

The Bacchante's engines, made by Rennie, were horizontal, compound, with return
connecting-rod, and three cylinders, one high pressure and two low. The screw was
a single one (Griffiths), its diameter 20 feet 10 inches, length 4 feet 7i inches, emersion
of upper edge 6 inches.

There were ten boilers and thirty furnaces. There were two funnels, the diameter of
the fore was 8 feet 9 inches, that of the after 6 feet 6 inches, and their weights wore
6 tons 8 cwt. and 5 tons 9 cwt. respectively. The total weight of the engines,
boilers (when filled), screw and machinery was a little under 1,000 tons.

The weight of her provisions for 84 days was 42 tons

That of the tanks themselves 9 ,,

That of the casks, cases, &c 11 ,,

The officers' store and slops (which last consist of spare clothing for issue). . . 12 , ,

The chests 4 ,,

The officers, men, and their effects 44 ,,

The masts, yards, and all the spars *. 70 ,,

The rigging and blocks 45 „

The sails (including spare ones) 10 ,,

The cables 53 ,,

Tlie five anchors 19 ,

The boats 12 „

The boatswain's and carpenter's stores 50 ,,

The guns, powder, shell, shot, and gimner's stores 178 ,,

xiv H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

All the foregoing weights amonnted to a little over 600 tons, while the total
weight of equipment to be recorded was 1,918 tons. Thus the weight of the
engines and machinery for propelling the ship amonnted to two-thirds of the weight
she carried. The weight of the hull was a little over the weight of what was placed
in the hull, and amonnted to 1,994 tons, so that the total displacement of the
BacehaiUe was 3,912 ; this was her actual weight in the water ; but her total
weight when fully equipped was 4,180 tons.

The Bacchante carried the following boats : —

Steam pinnace . .
Steam cutter'. . .
Sailing launch . .

do. pinnace
Cutters (two) . .

Galley

Whaler (air cases)
Second gig . . .

Dingey

Copper punt . . .

Length,
ft. in.

Bitsadth.

Depth.

Weight.

ft. In.

ft. in.

tonB.cwt.qr8.

37 0

8 11

4 74

6 2 0

28 0

•••

2 5 0

40 0

10 8

4 0

4 3 3

30 0

8 9

3 2

2 5 0

28 0

7 6

2 64

0 17 0

30 0

5 6

2 2

0 9 0

25 0

5 6

2 2

0 8 3r

26 0

5 6

2 2

0 7 6f

14 0

5 2

2 2

0 4 8

12 0

5 0

1 9

0 9 1

Men.

16 (double-banked)
12 do.

10 do.

6 (single-banked)

5 do.

2 do.

The above weights are those of the boats themselves : with their geai* they would
weigh half as much again, with the exception of the launch and pinnaces ; the number
of men given aro those required to pull them*

DIMENSIONS OF THE MASTS AND YABDS.

Foremast (extreme length from deck)

Topmasts

Topgallantmasts

The total heights of masts from deck

to truck were

Fore yard

Topsail yard

Topgallant yard

Royal yard

Bowsprit

Jib-boom (outboard)

Flying-boom (outboard)

Length

Diameter.

Fore.

Main.

Mizen.

Fore.

Main.

Miaen.

ft, in.

ft. In.

ft. in.

inches.

67 0

71 0

56 6

57 3

44 10

184

43 6

33 6

104

45 0

149 0

121 0

82 6

58 0

184

62 0

45 0

134

41 6

31 0

30 6

23 6

20 0

...

244

29 6

...

154

...

15 0

...

tingfr

om the

bowsw

as 63 ft

.6 in.

H.M.S. BACCHANTE. xv

H.M.S. Bacchante was commissioned July 15th, 1879, at Portsmouth, by Captain
Lo&D Charles M. D. Scott, and bore the following officers : —

Commander G. W. Hill.

Lieutenants Hon. A. G. Curzon Howe.

J. W. Osborne.

C. H, Adair.

A. M. Farquhar.
W. B. Fisher.

C. W. W. Ingram. 1
Navigating Lieu tenant... H. Roxby.
Lieutenant of Marines ...A. C. Smtth.^

Chaplain (acting) Rev. J. N. Dalton, M.A.

Navigating Instructor ...J. W. Lawless.

Fleet Surgeon A. Tubnbull, M.D.'

Staff Suigeon A. G. Delmegb, M.D.^

Paymaster W. H. Whichelo.

Chief Engineer D. Wilson. •

Sub-lieutenants H. N. Rolfe.^

P. K. W. Murray.'

E. Le Marchant.

F. M. RoYDs.8
H. C. Burrows."
C. H. H. Moore.

F. B. Henderson.

Assistant-paymaster G. A. F. C. Sceales.

Engineers W. J. Canter.'®

J. L. Stevenson.

G. H. Baker.
G. Trigqs."

J. J. PURKISS.^'

Gunner C. W. Frail.

Boatswain J. Mahoney.

Carpenter Allen Evans.

Midshipmen £. L. Munro.'^

W. F. Pebl.1*

B. CURREY.

Hugh Evan-Thomas.

R. P. Fitzgerald.

A. H. LiMpus.

A. H. Christian,

Hon. John C. M. D, Scoit.

W. B. Basset.

I Joined as sab-Uoatenant July 15th, 1S79 ; promoted and reappointed as lieutenant July 16th,
1680.

s Joined August 26th, 1880 ; promoted by seniority July 1st, 1881. During fho West Indian cruise
Lieutenant G. A. E. Gore was lieutenant of Marines until promoted by seniority.

5 Joined August 20th. 1880, in place of W. H. Lloyd, M D., who held this rank during the West
Indian cruise.

4 Joined as surgeon ; promoted and reappointed as staff surgeon December 85th, 1870.
s Joined July 6th, 1880, in place of D. J. Pearce, who held this rank during the West Indian
crnise. O Promoted and left December, lb70. 7 Left at Monte Video.

6 Promoted and left June, 1880. 9 Promoted and left September, 1880.
10 Joined September, 1880, in place of J. Manley.

U Joined September 18th, 1880, in place of J. J. K. Medlen, but was invalided March 10th, 1881.
u Joined June 30th. 1881. u Invalided home November 15th, 1879.

14 Resigned May 7th, 1880.

H.M.S. BACCBANTK

Kaval Cadets (afterwards -

midflhipmeD) Hon. G. A. Hardikgk.

R. E. Wemyss.

G. W. Hill YARD.

Lord F. G. G. Osborne.

H.R.H. Prince Albert Victor C. Edward.

H.R.H. Prince George Frederick E. Albert.
Clerk Edwin C. Petch.^

SHIP'S COMPLEMENT.

Officers 39

Petty Officers 55

Seamen, Stokers, Carpenters, Servants 208

Boys 36

Marines 49

Complement 387

Supernumeraries allowed 63

Total .

450

DEATHS DURING THE SHIP'S COMMISSION.

January Ist, 1880, at Barbados, James Sims, naval schoolmaster, rheumatic fever.

January 80th, 1880, at Grenada, George Knight, stoker.

May 18th, 1880, at Portsmouth, James Sharp, musician, fell into No. 10 Dock.

November 30th, 1880, at sea, William Foster, A.B., fell from aloft.

February 12th, 1881, at sea, George Dunn, sail-maker, brain-softening.

HARBOUR ROUTINE.

4.30 A.M. Hands lash up and stow hammocks.

4.50 „ Fall in ; scrub and wash decks.

5.0 ,, Duty boat's crew at breakfast.

5.45 ,, Duty boat away with stewards ashore to get provisions.

6.0 ,, Working subdivision of watch pump washing water ; royal yardmen clean

lightning conductors ; " Rouse out " bugle for midshipmen.
6.15 ,, "Cooks" ; guard and steerage hammocks up ; midshipmen fall in for

drill.
6.30 ,, Breakfast ; pass the word for rig of the day.
7.0 ,, Watch coming on deck, and the duty boat's crew, to clean.
7.15 ,, Watch fall in, clean wood and bright work ; watch below and idlers

clean mess deck and flats.
7.50 „ Upper yardmen fall in ; boat away for squaring yards.
8.0 ,, Evolution of the day (if more ships than one together, signal for this

given from senior officer's ship) ; watch below to clean.
8.30 ,, Quarters ; clean guns.
9.0 ,, Divisions ; prayers on upper deck.
9.30 „ Both watches fall in ; tell off drills, &c.
10.30 „ Defaulters fall in.

1 Left August, 1880.

H.M.S. BACCHANTE. xvii

11.0 A.M. Mess Tip spirits ; disiniss drills.
11.30 „ Clear up decks ; clean wood and bright work.
11.46 ,, " Cooks " of each mess to galley to fetch dinner.
12.0 ,, Dinner.
1.0 P.M. Upper deck sweepers fall in.

1.15 „ Out pipes ; clean arms.

1.30 ,, Betnm arms ; both watches fall in, and tell off drills.

3.0 „ Dismiss drills.

3.30 ,, Clear np decks.

3.60 „ Upper yardmen fall in.

4.0 „ Evolution (or evening drill).

4.16 „ "Cooks."

4.80 „ Supper ; shift into night clothing.

5.15 „ Quarters, afterwards coil up ropes ; up wash deck gear.

7.10 ,, Steerage hammock men and working subdivision of the watch fall in ;
down guard and steerage hammocks.

7.30 „ Stand by hammocks.

8.0 „ Men under punishment fall in.

8.30 ,, Stow bags ; clear up decks for rounds.

9.0 ,, " Out lights " ; rounds.

9.30 „ Pipe down.

10.0 ,, Out gun-room lights.

11.0 „ Out ward-room lights.

ROUTINE AT SEA.

4.0 A.M. "Watch, and watch of idlers, lash up.
4.10 ,, Muster with hammocks on upper deck, and stow.
4.20 „ Scrub decks.

6.0 „ Sub-division pump washing- water ; i-oyal yardmen clean lightning-
conductors ; rouse out mids.

6.16 „ Mids to drill.

6.30 „ Cooks of the messes take kettles to galley for allowance of cocoa ; up
guard and steerage {i.e. midshipmen's) hammocks.

6.46 „ Breakfast ; pass the word for the rig of the day (this is made from flag-
ship every morning according to the weather).

7.16 „ Forenoon watch to clean.

7.30 „ Watch fall in ; watch below clean messes and flats.

8.30 „ Qnaiters ; clean guns.

9.0 „ Divisions ; prayers on upper deck.

9.30 „ Watch faU in ; tell off drills.
10.30 „ Defaulters fall in to be seen by Commander.

11.0 „ Mess up spirits ; dismiss drills (that have been going on since 9.30).
11.30 „ Watch clear up decks.
11.45 „ "Cooks."
12.0 „ Dinner (boatswain's mates pipe together at hatchway).

1.0 P.M. Upper deck sweepers fall in (smoking allowed forward in the dinner-hour
on the upper deck).

1.15 ,, Out pipes ; clean arms.

1.30 „ Return arms ; call watch to fall in, and tell ofl* drills.

3.0 „ Dismiss drills (which have been going on since 1.30, rifle, cutlass, sail,
or what not).

H.M.S. BACCHANTE,

8.80

P.M.

4.0

4.15

4.45

5.0

7.10

7.80

8.0
8.30

Clear np decks ; watch below sliift night clothing.

Watch fall in ; watch below shift ; cooks.

Supper.

Out pipes ; quarters.

Drill (all ships of the squadron together, by signal from Flagship,

"make plain sail," ** shift topsail," &c.).
Steerage hammock men fall in ; down guard and steerage hammocks ;

working sub-division unlace hammock cloths.
Stand by hammocks (all hammocks are then taken out of hammock

nettings, where they were stowed in the morning, and now slung

between decks ready for night use, each in its proper place).
Stow bags ; clear up decks for rounds.
Out lights in messes, and fires in galley (the Commander then goes round

all decks, and afterwards reports the same as "correct" to the Captain).

FIRST LIEUTENANT'S ROUTINE OF MIDSHIPMEN'S DRILLS.

7.30 to 8.0 A.M. Cutlass or rifle drill every morning

9.80 ,,11.30 „ School „

11.80 „ 12.0 „ Sights

1.80 „ 2.30 P.M. Gun drill Monday

2.45 ,, 8.45 ,, Seamanship ,,

1.30,, 2.30 „ Company drill Tuesday

2.45,, 3.45 „ Seamanship „

1.80,, 2.30 „ Gunnery and torpedo Wednesday

1.80,, 2.30 „ Steam Thursday

1.30,, 2.80 „ Logs and watch bills Friday

DETACHED SQUADRON ROUTINE.

A.M.

P.M.

Monday

9.80

Divisional quarters.

1.30

Exercise a division

n.o

Watch drill.

of seamen aloft.

Tuesday

do.

Wednesday

do.

Thursday

do.

Make and mend
clothes.

Friday

General quarters.

1.30

Exercise a division
of seamen aloft.

Saturday

Cleaning ship throughout

The watch drill was at the time stated, if any took place, though not often. After
evening quarters every evening, weather permitting, except Saturday, general exer-
cise alofti and on Thursday evening small arm companies were drilled.

H.M.S. BACCHANTE,

SUMMARY OF PASSAGES MADE DURING THE PERIOD OF THE
SHIP'S COMMISSION.

Fassaqb.

From

1879—

Spithead

Portland

Gibraltar

PortMahon

Palermo

Messina

Gibraltar

Madeira

Teneriffe

1880—
Barbados

Port of Spain

San Fernando

Granada

Garriacou Island...

Union Island

Kingstown, St.

Vincent

St. Vincent

St. Lucia

Barbados

Martinique

Dominica

St Thomas

Jamaica

Bermuda

Spithead

Holyhead

Spithead

BeTcharen

Vigo

Spithead

Gowes

Spithead

Cowes

Tannonth

Portland

Ferrol

Vigo

Madeira

St. Vincent

Carried

Portland!

Gibraltar.. »

Port Mahon,

Minorca

Palermo

Messina

Gibraltar

Madeira

Teneriffe

Barbados

Port of Spain,
Trinidad

San Fernando

Granada

Carriacou Island..

Union Island

St. Vincent, W.I.

Chateau Belair,
St Vincent

St Lucia

Barbados

Martinique

Dominica

St Thomas

Jamaica

Bermuda

Spithead

Holyhead

Spithead

Berehaven

Viffo

Spithead

Cowes

Spithead

Cowes

Yarmouth

Portland

Ferrol

Vigo

Madeira

St Vincent, C. de
Verde Islands...

Monte Video

forward

DlBTAMOB

Madb Umdeb

Sail, steam.

1004

431

455
429
286
400

186

327
62
20
59

148

263

677

1170

286

650

800
3328

11815

46
368

523

133

549

240

2821

44
33
60

106

1000

1849

382

385

860

877

735

334

190

248
452

11531

Days
Undeb
Wat.

1
12

4
4
2
7
7
5
20

1
3
5

8
20
3
3
3
10
8
1
1
1
1
1
8
3
7

7
83

270

HOUBS

Ukdkb

Stkam.

371

3
24
22

159

260

212

168

75
50
14

20
94

[9581

Actual Tixb

rBOM

PoBT TO Port.

Days. Hours.

8
3

*5
6
3

i
i

4
6
19
1
2
1
8
7

6
2
6

6
81

157

h 2

6
23
27

8
21
16
13
15

4
28

2
23
20

"ii

11
3

2i
7
22
2

4041

H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

Passaof..

From

Brought forward
1881—

Monte Video

Falkland Islands..

Simon's Bay

Table Bay

Cape of Good Hope

Albany

Melbourne

Sydney

Brisbane

Fiji Islands

Yokohama

Kob^

Simonoseke

Wusung

Chusan

Amoy

1882—
Hong Kong..
Singapore ..

Colombo

Suez

Port Said ..
Alexandria..

Jaffa

Haifa

Beyrout

Piraeus

Suda Bay ..

Corfu

Palermo

Cagliari

Valencia

Gibraltar

Ferrol

Cowes

Falkland Islands..
Cape of Good Hope

Table Bay

Simon's Bay

Albany, Western

Australia

Melbourne

Sydney

Brisbane

Levuka, Fiji Islands

Yokohama

Kobe ...

Simonoseke

Wusung

Chuaan

Amoy

Hong Kong

Singapore

Colombo

Suez

Port Said

Alexandria

Jaffa

Haifa

Beyrout ,

Piraeus

Suda Bay, Crete.,

Corfu •.

Palermo

Cagliari

Valencia

Gibraltar

Ferrol

Cowes

Spithead

Distance
Made Under

Sail. Steam.

11815

1185
2075

4501

413

1572

3345

282

408
258

1319

839

2546

36
257

30088 24591

11531

198

1620

751

1340

571

158

101

939

380

255

274

143

129

750

863

150

265

658

168

840

340

171

224

390

955

557

Days
Under
Way.

270

16
23

1
1

87
7
3
7

15
42
3
3
6
3

10
11
24
3
2
3
1
1
5
2
5
4
8
8
4
7
4
1

478

Hours
Under
Steam.

1958i

244

131

154

176

544

110

145

165

4108

Actual Time

FROM

Port to Port.

Days. Hours.

157

16
21

5
13
41

52
1

"2
1

9
10
23

388

404i

5
23

8
11

20
10

7
23
22

7
10
19

2
15

'5
12
12

8
11
22
21

7
18

2
21

771

Grand Total of Miles run during the

Commission 54679

West India Cruise 6959 7417 118 1168 97 22

Second Cruise 24407 14419 831 2415 289 2

Best week's run daring the Commission 1840 miles From 12th to 18th June, 1881.

Lowest week's nm daring the Commission 848 miles From 10th to 17th October, 1881,

Best week's run under sail 1242 miles From 6th to 12th May, 1881.

Best day's run under sail 228 miles 2nd Februari, 1881.

Best day's run under steam and sail 276 3 miles 27th July, 1881.

Highest speed per hour under steam 15 knots 16th November, 1880.

Highest speed per hour under sail 12 knots 15th December, 1881.

Highest speed per hour under steam and sail 13 knots 20th and 27th July, 1881.

1 Anchored each night 2 Anchored for 40 hours at Saddle Island.

3 This includes 12 hours ftill power steam trial.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
THE WEST AND THE SOUTH.

PAGES

AT SEA. Portsmouth to Gibraltar 1—7

„ Gibraltar to Port Mahon 8—10

„ Port Mahon to Palermo 14, 15

,, Palermo to Messina 28, 24

„ Messina to Gibraltar 26, 27

„ Gibraltar to Madeira 38, 34

„ Madeira to Teneriffe 87— 40

Santa Cruz— Oratava— Up the Peak 40— 45

AT SEA. Teneriffe to Barbados 47— 50

Barbados — Bridgetown — St, John's — ^Codrington College — H.M.S.

uitoianto— Farley-Hill— Cole's Cave— [West Indies] ..... 51— 64

AT SEA. Barbados to Trinidad 65— 68

Port of Spain — High Woods — Government House— San Josef— Arima
Coolies— Botanical Gardens — Sugar-cane Mill — Pitch-lake —

Usine at San Fernando 69 — 88

AT SEA. Trinidad to Grenada 90— 93

„ Grenada to Cariacou, Union Island and St. Vincent .... 96 — 99

„ St. Vincent to St. Lucia, Barbados and Martinique 103—111

,, Martinique to Dominica 115

Roseau — [Abolition of Slavery, Impetus to Slave-trade, Sugar
Bounties] — Badinoch — Scene of Eruption— [The Federated Lee-
ward Islands]— Land-crabs 116—138

AT SEA. Dominica to St. Thomas and Jamaica 139—145

Port Royal— Kingston — King's House — Spanish Town— [Taxation,

Labour Supply, Future of Jamaica] — Bog-walk— Flamstead . . 146 — 166

xxii CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

PAGES

AT SEA. Jamaica to Bennuda 167—169

Clarence Cove — Gibb's Hill — Hamilton — Mount Laugton — North

Rock— St. George's . 170—184

AT SEA. Bermuda to Portsmouth 184—197

"Hands Make and Mend Clothes" — Friday General Quarters —
Routine.

AT SEA. With Channel and Reserve Squadrons, Bantry Bay, Vigo,

Cowes 199—211

„ Spithead to Portland, Portland to Ferrol 216—220

Ferrol — Corunna — Eum^ River and Monastery — the " Asturias " . . 221 — 227

„ Ferrol to Vigo '. . 228—232

Waiting for Detached Squadron in Vigo Bay 233—288

„ Vigo to Madeira 289—243

,, Madeira to Cape de Verde Islands 247 — 250

„ Cape de Verde Islands to the Plate 252—265

Monte Video-^Inspection of ^a«(^7i^-^[Rallways and Immigrants
in Uruguay. A South American Australia] — Durazno — Lassoing
— ^Buenos Aires — Estancia Negreti — over the Pampas — [The

Federal SUtes of th6 Plate] 266—298

AT SEA. Monte Video to Falkland Islands ....'. 299—307

,, South America to South Africa 308 — 318

Cape Town — [Cape Politics] — Table Mountains — [Native Races] —
Ketchwayp ^- Majuba — Bok-shooting — Ostrich-farmiug— Docks
and Breakwater — [Strategic value of the Cape]— Simon's Bay —
Death of the Emperor of Russia — Regatta— [Transvaal] — [South
Africa, the two British Colonies, the two Dutch Republics and
the Native Clans — either one of two Policies] 319 — 429

AT SEA. Cape of Good Hope to Aiistralia 430—444

Albany — Hoisting out our Rudder — First ride into the Bush —
Marblup — Breaksea Island — H.M.S Cleopatra arrives — [King

George's Sound]— Western Australia 445—469

Adelaide — Kadina and Moonta Mines — Mount Lofty — CoUingrovc —

St Peter's Cathedral 471—480

Overland from Adelaide to Victoria — On Lakes Alexandrina and
Albert — Kangaroo Hunting — Along the Coorong — South
Australia 481—494

CONTENTS OF VOL. J. xxiii

PAQKS

From the frontier to Melbourne — Melbourne — [The Victorian Naval
Force]— Ballarat — Down a Gold Mine — [Australian Federation]
— Separation Day Meeting — Botanical Gardens — ^Addresses —
Melbourne Cricket Club — Sandhurst— Education in Victoria—
We are to leave H.M.S. Bace?iant&— [Imperial Federation] . . . 496 — 550

AT SEA. Hobson's Bay to Port Jackson on board H.M.S. Inoomtant . 550—553
Sydney— St Andrew's Cathedral — Captain Cook's Monument —
Botanical Gardens — [New South Wales Military Force]— Sydney
University — [Education in New South Wales] — Boomerangs
and Frozen Meat — [Australian Legislatures] — Visit to the Blue
Mountains — Admiral's illness — [The French in the Pacific]—
Marquis de Rays — H.M.S. Bacchante arrives — New South Wales
Trade — HawkeSbury River — Public Holiday — Botany Bay . . . 554 — 612

AT SEA. Port Jackson to Moreton Bay 613—615

Brisbane — One Tree Hill — Queensland — Ministerial Pic-nic —

Grammar School 616—624

„ Moreton Bay to Fyi 625—630

Levuka — Whale's tooth — [Sir Arthur Gordon on Fiji ; the tribal
arrangements, method of Government and taxation ; trade and
general prospects]— Christianity in Fyi — Kava drinking^Mekd
dancing — [Plant-culture and labour supply] 630 — 675

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PACE

Gibraltar from Spanish side op the Neutral Ground . . To face page 80

"After Evening Quarters'* 34

^Thb Gardens of the Hesperides To face page 44

Banana in Fruit 83

1/ILM.S. "Bacchante" under all possible sail To face page 143

Jamaican Cactus and Pinguin Hedges 151

General Quarters , 189

Vigo (Sketch from " Bacchantf/s " Deck) 204

In the North-east Trades . - 248

Crossing the Line 256

l/WooL Waggons on South American Pampas To face page 287

Beating to Windward, H.M.S. "Garnet" leading 802

/Detached Squadron in Simon's Bay To face page 819

Table Mountain from the Eloof Road 364

H.M.S. "BAocHAirrB" in a Gale 440

Extemporised Steering Gear 443

Derrick Rigged for Unshipping Rudder 449

Broken Rudder-head 451

Our Shanty in the Bush at Marblup 453

An Australian Buck-jumper 457

y In Miner's Rig To face page 512

xxvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PACK

Kklly*s Armour 515

Kelly the Bxjshranqbr 617

Government House, Melbourne, from Botanical Garden . To face page 623

H.M.S. "Bacchante" in Hobson's Bay without her Rudder 626

/ Elizabeth Bay, Port Jackson To face page 658

White Labourers in Queensland Sugar-fields 622

y/ Levuka To face page 630

\/HuT built for us by Fijian Chiefs „ 654

Yanoona, or Kaya Drinking 655

MekiS Dancing 656

Outrigger Canoe on Beach 658

Group of Fiji Men 659

Meki^. Dancing at Night 671

LIST OF CHARTS AND MAPS.

PAOB

J^Cruise of H.M.S. "Bacchante" To face page xix

Portland to Gibraltar 4

Gibraltar to Port Mahon 8

Port Mahon to Palermo 14

Palermo to Messina 23

Messina to Gibraltar 26

Gibraltar 29

Gibraltar to Madeira - 38

Madeira to Tenbriffb 37

tsneriffb to barbados 47

Barbados to Trinidad 66

Trinidad to Grenada, Grenadines, and St. Vincent 90

St. Vincent to St. Lucia, to Barbados, to Martinique, to Dominica 108

Dominica to St. Thomas and Jamaica 140

Jamaica to Bermuda 167

Bermuda to Portsmouth 186

Portsmouth to Bantrt Bay and Vioo 200

Ferrol to Vigo 228

Yioo TO Madeira 28d

xxviii LIST OF CHARTS AND MAPS.

PAOB

Madeira to Cape de Verde Islands 247

St. Vincent to Monte Video 254

Monte Video to the Falklands 300

Falklands to Cape of Good Hope 308

Table Bay to Simon's Bay 356

South Africa 373

Cape of Good Hope to Australia 430

Sydney to Brisbane 613

Brisbane to Levuka 625

CKUlSE OF H.M.S. "BACCHANTE/'

1879—1882.

After having passed the two years 1877 — 1879 as naval cadets
on board H.M.S. Britannia (Captain H. Fairfax, C.B.) at Dartmouth,
we left that ship late in July, and on Tuesday, August 6th, 1879,
joined H3I.S. Bacchante off Cowes, at which anchorage she had
arrived the evening before from Spithead. A few hours afterwards
the Prince and Princess of Wales, with our three sisters, the
Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and the Duke and Duchess of
Connaught, came privately on board, went round and were shown
over the Bacchante, which was dressed at the time with mast-
head flags in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh's birthday. The
ship remained in Cowes Roads during the regatta week till
the 11th, when she started for an experimental cruise down
the Channel, in the same manner as any other new ship when
first commissioned, to test her steam and sailing power, under
various conditions of wind and weather. On Saturday, August
16th, she anchored in Plymouth Sound. The next day the
Prince of Wales arrived there also in the Osborne to be present
at the laying of the foundation stone of the new Eddystone
Lighthouse by the Duke of Edinburgh ; who as Master of the
Trinity House had come round in the Trinity yacht Galatea,
The Bacchante put to sea again the same afternoon for further
continuation of experimental cruise which lasted till the 26th, when
she anchored at Spithead. The official report of her performances
stated ** she had been as far west as the Channel soundings, about
100 miles south of Cape Clear, and experienced both light and strong

/ VOL. I. B

2 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1879.

winds. The ship was tried under steam and sail in both ; is a
perfect steamer ; under sail is slow in light winds, but sails weU in a
fresh breeze : is not crank but very steady, and altogether a very satis-
factory ship." On the 28th the ship proceeded alongside the Sheer
Jetty in Portsmouth Harbour and got out the four-and-a-half ton
forecastle gun and also the two sixty-four pounders from the captain's
cabin. These weights were removed with the view of altering her
trim and of possibly thus making her a better sailer.

Sept. 17th. — The Prince of Wales, attended by Captain Stephenson
and Mr. Holzmann, brought us both (we had just returned from
Denmai'k, whither we had been for a few days with the Princess
of Wales) down from town to Portsmouth and proceeded with
Admiral Fanshawe in the Firequeen on board the Bacchante
at Spithead, where having left us he returned on shore to be the
guest for the night of Prince Edward of Saxe- Weimar.

Sept. l^th. — The Prince of Wales with Prince and Princess
Edward and Prince Herman of Saxe-Weimar came on board about
10.30. A.M. We left the anchorage at Spithead about noon, the
Prince of Wales's standard at the main and the Osborne following
as tender, proceeded through the Needles to Portland, where we
arrived at 4.30 P.M. in a thick fog, having done the forty-six miles at
over ten knots the hour. Roxby piloted us so well that although
we had been in the fog ever since we had passed the Needles we
exactly hit oflF the end of the Portland breakwater, round the east
end of which we passed to our anchorage. H.M.S. Warrior and
Boscawen manned yards and saluted standard, which was hauled
down on the Prince of Wales leaving the ship for the Osborne.

Sept. IQth. — We went on board the Osborne after breakfast to say
good-bye to the Prince of Wales, who left at 10. A.M. for Cherbourg,
where he arrived the same afternoon at 4.30 P.M., having found it
very foggy all across the Channel. The Bacchante manned yards,
fired royal salute and cheered ship as the Osborne steamed out
of Portland Roads. In the afternoon had our first scratch match at
cricket on the recreation ground, and afterwards walked up to the
Verne and on the Chesil beach. At 5.30 p.m. H.M.S. Newcastle,
Capt. Kelly, arrived and anchored. She is the last of the old frigates,
and her lines contrast somewhat strongly with those of the more
modem Bacchante. She was one of the Flying Squadron, under
the command of Admiral Rowley Lambert, when Lord Charles
Scott was his flag-captain. The next day the weather cleared and
H.M.S. Warrior's athletic sports took place.

1879. PORTLAND TO GIBRALTAR. 3

Sept. 21st. — Morning service, at which, for the first time, the
large harmonium which the Princess of Wales has given for the
use of the ship was played. Prince Edward of Saxe- Weimar, Lord
Albert Seymour and Colonel Gordon came over from Weymouth
(where H.S.H. is staying for an inspection of the district) and
lunched on board.

Sept 22nd. — During the dinner hour all the officers assembled on
the quarter-deck and were photographed in a group. In the after-
noon several of us went ashore, up to the convict prison, where
Mr. Clifton, the governor, showed us round the various blocks of
buildings. We went into several of the cells, which were all
beautiftilly clean and neat, and then saw the convicts march in
in gangs from their work at the close of the day. We heard some
startling yarns as to former and present occupants of this
establishment.

Sept. 2Uh. — To-day there is a strong south-west breeze, which, if
it continueSjWill be a head wind for us going down Channel, otherwise
the weather is bright and fine. Lieutenant £. S. Evans (who is
staying with his brother the commander of the Boscawen), our old
first lieutenant on board the Britannia, came ofiF to see us.

Sept. 26th. — During the morning watch sighted H.M.S. JSnr-
charUress with the Admiralty flag flying ; after she had anchored the
Lords of the Admiralty (Mr. W. H. Smith, Sir Cooper Key, Admiral
Eood) came on board at 10 a.m. and went round the ship.

Steam was ordered to be up by 4 p.m. Got under way at 5.15
P.M., made sail to topgallant sails, and proceeded thus out through
the " hole in the wall." Outside the Race, oflF the Bill, there was a
very slight swell, but the ship went as steaily as a church, the
breeze being still firom the south-west. As soon as we are round
the comer we furled sails and proceeded under steam. The Dorset
coast was very clear in the evening light ; after dinner stayed on
deck till 12 p.m., when we passed the Start. Before this we saw the
reflection of light over Torquay above the horizon, but could not
distinguish either Berry Head or Dartmouth Harbour. Passed,
however, through quite a little fleet of our old friends the Brixham
trawlers.

Sept. 26th. — Passed the Lizard about 11 A.M., a fine sunny morning;
what little wind there is comes from the west, and we are going six
and a half knots. Lost sight of the Wolf Lighthouse and the Land's
End, and thus get our last glimpse of the English coast soon after
3 pm. We meet at the same time our first shoal of porpoises, coming

B 2

CRUISE OF ILM.S. BACCHANTE.

1879.

PORTLAND TO GIBRALTAR.

From Previous Noon.

AtN

Date.

Distance.

Course.

Wind.

Lat.

Siill. jSteam.

Sept.

N.W. 3-4

.. ! 112

W. 3

49-52

S. 68 W.

14 ; 134

S.W. 4-6

48-58

28S.-

a. 84^v.

118 1 ...

N.E. 3-4

48-47

S. 24 W.

133 1 ...

E. 3

46-46

S. 2 W.

128 ...

S.W. 3-7

44-38

Oct.

S. 15 E.

117

N.E. 2-3

42-44

South

121 ...

E. 3-4

40-43

S. 12 E.

127

N.E. 1-2

38-39

S. 40 E.

N.E. 1-4

37-29

5S.

S. 55 E.

146

N.E. 5-2

36-7

8
1004

122

N.E. 1-2

368

Tota

IdiBtoDce...

1372 mil

es.

Tbvpebature.

Sea.

Long.

Noon.

(IP.M

5-27

9 0

11-59

13-20

13-26

12-44

12-8

10-52

8-22

Air.

Noon.

e^.M.

1879. PORTLAND TO GIBRALTAR. 5

to welcome us as they rise and plunge in the slight Atlantic swell,
to which the Bacchante now begins to pitch responsively. After
evening quarters the horizontal bar was rigged on the quarter-deck
and we had our first turn round. Rope quoits are also started on
the opposite side of the deck, which, instead of being pitched on a
peg, are aimed to fall into a bucket, or else a circle chalked for that
purpose at each end of the quarter-deck.

Sept, 27th. — The thermometer 60^ already a couple of degrees
warmer than yesterday, and though the wind is nearly dead ahead
we made plain sail at 11 A.M*, and afterwards raised the screw.
There is now a heavy swell coming up from the west, but overhead it
is bright and sunny. The Bacchante is said to be more lively than
she was when she carried her forecastle gun and the two smaller
ones aft in the captain's cabia. The watch are being constantly
exercised to accustom them to their stations.

On Sunday 28th the two usual services at 10.30 a.m. and at
5 P.M. As the wind to-day is fair from north-east we set stunsails,
and after dinner passed the Wilson-line steamer Yeddo of
Liverpool homeward bound, to which made signal " report us all
well." The number of the porpoises and of the Mother Carey's
chickens goes on increasing, and at night the rolling of the ship
also. This continued the whole of the next day (Michaelmas
day). At noon we had made a run of 133 miles. The captain
dined in the wardroom, and after dinner bets were made as
to the Bacchante some day sailing thirteen knots between the
Cape and AustraUa in the "roaring forties." Bright moonlight
night.

Sept, 30^A. — Thermometer 62^ rainy morning. In the after-
noon the breeze freshened up to six, when we went along be-
tween six and seven knots closehauled, heeling from twelve to
fourteen degrees, with the royals in. After evening quarters the
wind died away and we were once more left rocking on the
swell.

Oct, \st. — The morning broke clear and bright : what wind there
is is right aft (north-east), but we only make an average of three
knots the whole twenty-four hours : those of the youngsters who
had a touch of sea-sickness are now quite themselves again, with
vigorous appetites and cheerful voices. In the afternoon we all take
our turn on the horizontal bar, and at quoit playing.

Od, 2nd, — Progress somewhat better this morning, course south,
wind on the port beam, and by noon have made 121 miles. We

6 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1879.

are said to be running along in the " Portuguese trade," the sea all
round is a deep purple blue, and the line of the horizon is broken
by the swell, and thus appears quite wavy, and not straight as when
seen ofif the land. Two of our gunroom mess-mates who came out
of the Britannia in our term as naval cadets are to-day rated as
midshipmen, and appear for the first time with the white patches
on their jacket collars.

Oct. Srd. — It is becoming gradually delightfully warm, ther-
mometer in cabin to-day nearly 70°. In the afternoon, after quarters,
had single-stick and boxing, afterwards there was a tug of war,
starboard watch keepers against port. Our first view of a regular
** trade" sunset, the sky sufiused with a deep rose colour, and a
multitude of small clouds broken up all along the western horizon.
After dinner experimented with the microphone, listening to the
flies walking over a board, etc.

Oct. Uh. — A warm bright day, the usual Saturday routine,
cleaning ship throughout, fire quarters, etc. In the evening as
before, high cockolorum, " sling the monkey," etc. and then to choir
practice. A beautiful starlight night with the moon behind a thin
veil of cloud, through which also Mars is distinctly visible, shining
with a ruddy hue : Jupiter in the west with his four moons (which
the officer of the watch persisted were seven in his glass) was very
bright, and in the north was the Swan with its cross, a finer one
even than the Southern Cross. Went forward on the forecastle and
there looked out on the waters as the ship ploughed her way
through them, and all the stars glittered in between the spaces of
the sails and rigging, and everything was silvered over by the light
of the moon. " Quam magnificata sunt opera tua, Domine I omnia
in sapientia fecisti ; impleta est terra possessione tu9,. Hoc mare
magnum et spatiosum manibus ; illic reptilia quorum non est
numerus, animalia pusilla cum magnis : illic naves pertransibunt :
omnia a te expectant ut des iUis escam in tempore. Dante te iUis
colligent ; aperiente te manum tuam, omnia implebuntur bonitate.
Sit gloria Domini in saeculum : laetabitur Dominus in operibus
suis."— Psalm ciii. 24-31.

Oct. 5th, — Morning service on main deck. At noon had made
146 miles, our best run hitherto, giving us an average of six knots,
though the wind has never been more than five, port stunsails set
nearly the whole time. After evening quarters got the screw down,
furled sails and commenced steaming as we had to alter course,
hauling up for Gibraltar.

1879. PORTLAND TO GIBRALTAR. 7

Oct. 6(h. — Rose early and saw the sun rise right ahead at 5.30 a.m.

" Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay ;
In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray ;
' Here and here did England help me ; how can 1 help England ? — say,
Whoso turns as we, this morning, turn to God to praise and pray."

— R. Browning, Home Thoughts from th^ Sea,

Seventy-four years ago this very month, these capes and bays
were witness to that, the memory of which this morning fills our
minds. On the 21st October, 1805, twenty-seven English ships of
the line and four frigates engaged thirty-three French and Spanish
ships of the line and seven frigates. Nelson had pursued them out
to the West Indies, and back again to Cadiz : while Napoleon was
waiting at Boulogne to invade England. He came up with them
here, and here completed the work of his life. Nelson was
wounded a quarter before one, and died at half-past four same
afternoon, only forty-seven years old : **and though he fell himself
in the hour of victory, twenty French sail had struck their flag ere
the day was done. The French and Spanish navies were in
fact annihilated. From this time the supremacy of England at
sea remained unquestioned, and the danger of any invasion of
England rolled away like a dream." (Green, History of the English
People^ vol. iv. p. 362.) Cape Spartel on the African Cpast
stands up through the mist which now begins to settle on the
horizon, owing to the Levanter which we begin to meet blowing full
in our faces out through the Straits. We passed a French convict
ship, an old two-decker sailing out westward before it ; shortly after,
Tarifa, a Moorish-looking town on the yellow-grey Spanish coast,
and so came in to our anchorage off Gibraltar at 11.30 A.M. The
Kock stretches in all its long and jagged magnificence in front of
us ; the bumboats from the shore at once come clustering round the
ship. At 4.30 P.M. we landed by the Mole and walked up through
the Alameda or public promenade grounds to Captain Edye's,
(senior naval officer here), and so had our first sight of palms, aloes,
and other semi-tropical trees and flowers growing in the open.
These have a dusty look by the roadside. Some Moors, handsome,
stalwart, well-made men in white robes from Tangiers, and
turbaned ; pony carriages with awning stretched on iron canopies,
(and let out for hire as cabs), and many English soldiers passed us.
Captain Edye gave us bananas, figs and pomegranates grown in
his garden, which he told us the monkeys had spared. Round the
house the bougainvillea creeper with its purple flowers grows most

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE,

1870.

luxuriantly, climbing up over and hanging in festoons from all
the trees around : the heliotrope also is flourishing in great bushes.
We walked on up to the Jewish cemetery and by the Europa
barracks. Just before dusk we had a fine view both of the
African coast across the Straits to the south, and of Algesiras on
the Spanish mainland to the west over the bay. Then down to
the Mole steps and ofiF to the ship, through a mass of phosphor-
escence which literally covered the whole surface of the water, and
ran like molten silver from the oar-blades of the crew.

GIBRALTAR TO PORT MAHON.

From Pbevioos Noon

Date.

Oct.

CourHe.

N. 78 E.

N. 67 E.
N. 57 E.

Distance.

Sail. |. Steam.

124

Wind.

186

181

At Noon.

Lat. Long.

Temperaturb.
Sea. Air.

Noon. 6 P.M. Noon fl p.m

7^2 70

67 69

Light Aire, 36 "32 ' 251 , 70 | 70 75 I 74

E. ' I

E.N. 2 37-41 I 0-45 70 70 76 ' 73

N.E. 2-3 I 39-19 , 41 70 I 70 74 ' 71

To tal d ifltance 523 miles.

Oct, 1th, — Got our letters and newspapers, and heard for the first
time, to our surprise, from England of the " Mutiny" and dis-

1879. GIBRALTAR TO PORT MAHON, 9

turbance on board the Bacchante. After posting our mails,
weighed anchor at 3.35 P.M. under steam, and proceeded round
Europa Point with its barracks and flats for exercise and drill into
the Mediterranean, ^ich was perfectly calm and covered with
phosphorescence. There was much mist on the surface of the water,
though the stars could be seen clearly overhead,

Oct. 8th. — ^At 8 A.M. had our first sight of the Sierra Nevada of
Granada ; the snow-capped hills stood out above the clouds which
hid their lower slopes, although the lesser hills nearer the coast were
clearly seen in the dark foreground. It is the highest range of hills
in Spain ; even in summer the snow does not entirely melt on their
summits. The Spanish coast was in sight all day; there are
apparently three tiers of mountains one behind the other. The
thermometer is over TS"* and it feels very warm. We have begun
white trousers and cap covers to-day and have got a bit of the
awning spread.

Oct. 10th. — Tlie mountains of Majorca are visible in the distance on
the port beam. From 11 a.m. to 12.30 p.m., practised firing at a target,
four rounds from each gun, one of these from each side as an electric
b^roadside for the first time; the small-arm men popping away
300 rounds of Martini ammunition and the Qatling gun discharging
240 rounds (one drum full) into the sea. Soon after noon sighted
the coast of Minorca bearing north. We entered and steamed
slowly up the long harbour of Port Mahon. The bay is three miles
long ; its average width is only 400 yards, though in some places it is
three times that distance across, and runs away into many coves and
sheltered little nooks. We pass, on the left or western horn of the
entrance, the ruined fortress of San Felipe, which was built for
Charles V. Here are the graves of many of the British soldiei-s.
Immediately opposite, on the more lofty and eastern horn of the
entrance. La Mola, we see numbers of Spanish workmen busily
engaged in erecting large and very extensive fortifications, which are
said to have cost already more than 300,000/., and which would re-
quire 4,000 men at least to man them. A little further on we pass a
small rocky island on which stands the quarantine establishment,
opposite to George Town or Villa Carlos, on the western shore ; and
further on again two more islands, the larger one of which is covered
with the yellow walls of the hospital built by the English when
here, until we anchor, 4.30 P.M., in eight fathoms, just oflF English
Cove and almost alongside Point Figuera, round the comer of
which the town of Port Mahon itself is situated. We hoist the

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1879.

heavy yellow and red folds of the Spanish flag at the main ; and
salute it just before the sun goes down with twenty-one guns.

Minorca, the second in size of the Balearic Isles — (that take their
name from Ballo, because their inhabitants Vere good throwers),
was earlj^ colonised by the Phoenicians, and afterwards passed
into the hands of the Carthaginians. It contains the finest harbour
in the Mediterranean, within it a large fleet of line-of-battle ships
can lie in seven fathoms of water safe from every wind that blows.
This harbour was called " Portus Magonis," either from some early
Carthaginian explorer of that name, or, as seems more probable, after
the younger brother of Hannibal himself, who, when he was ejected
from Spain by the Romans passed over to Minorca and spent the
winter there. The name has now been softened into Port Mahon.
The Spaniards have a saying about it that "the ports of the
Mediterranean are June, July, August and Port Mahon." The
possession of this harbour made the island of Minorca a bone of
contention among all the maritime powers of Europe throughout the
last century. In 1708 it was attacked by General Stanhope, and
capitulated. When the general was afterwards raised to the
peerage he received as one of his titles the name of the place which
he had won ; and thus, in the strange vicissitudes of human fortune,
an English nobleman bears the name of the brother of Hannibal
and also of the reputed founder of the Carthaginian empire itself.
The English held it for nearly fifty years, till it was taken by the
French in 1756, but restored to Great Britain in 1763, and held by
us for another twenty years, then lost again in 1782, recaptured in
1798, but finally given to Spain by the treaty of Amiens in 1802,
as two years previous to that Malta had been acquired by us as a
Mediterranean harbour further east.

AT PORT MAHON.

Wind.

Temperature.

Date.

Hca.

Air.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon,

6 P.M.

Oct.

N.E. 1-2

7*1

12S.

N.E. 1

S.E. 1

S.E. 1-2

Variable 1

N.E. 4-7

N. 7-2

1879. AT PORT MAHON. 11

Oct. 13th. — Soon after noon went ashore, met the vice-consul
(Don Gabriel Segui), and with him visited Don Jose Oliva's collec-
tion of pictures, amongst which are several Murillos, a Rubens,
a Memling, and others worthy of note. He had also a nice little lot
of old armour and antique pottery. In the afternoon went to hear
the organ played in the cathedral ; this is said to have been a gift
of George II. when the English held the island. A selection of six
or seven pieces, most of them, however, dance music, was played by
the organist to bring out the effect of the various stops ; we joined
liim afterwards in the organ loft, and one of our number tried his
hand at playing the instrument. We then went on to the dock-
yard, which is on the opposite side of the harbour, which we crossed
in a couple of small boats, to see in the workshops there a little
model of an invention of the head carpenter's for striking and
swaying up topmasts without sending any men aloft. The machine
was worked by a crank on deck. Pretty enough as a model, but — .
There was also a very fair collection of models of various kinds
of ships. Then over the water back through the town, the houses
of which are very substantially built, with large blocks of stone of
a different kind from that found hereabouts : the streets are all
flagged and are cool and clean, as there is not much traffic in them,
and not more than three or four wheeled vehicles in the whole place.
The stonework on the quay looks as if put together by English hands.
As a fact, nearly all the present government buildings were built
by our engineers when the island was in our possession, which was
the period of the island's greatest prosperity. We then went to
the Unen manufactory, where we saw the steam looms at work, most
of the hands (over 350) engaged here are women. On returning on
board we had a good bathe from the ship's side.

Oct 14ith. — Bathed again before breakfast, and then at 10 A.M.
went ashore — a party of six ward-room and eight gun-room officers.
Met the vice-consul at the custom-house and drove up through
the town in " two coaches " (which were antique and rather shaky
omnibus-like constructions) to the Plaza, where he had ordered
three "jack-asses" to meet us and on to which three mids
transferred themselves. We went first to San Louis, along a
capital road made by the French (when they held the island), who
designed this to be the chief town, but it never grew beyond a few
houses, a church and a small market-place. After going about a
mile, or half way between Port Mahon and San Louis, we turned off
down a country lane, winding amongst walls of stone gathered off

12 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTK 1879.

the fields, to the Talayot Trepuco. This is apparently an ancient
altar in the shape of the letter "f, the table-stone, supported on the
summit of one other only, lies lengthwise, due north and south. In
all the fields, which are very stony and inclosed with stone walls,
there is very little growing except cactus, on which the prickly pears
are now ripe. Here and there, however, the surface has been scraped
by a plough, but with little effect, except to make still more
manifest the stony nature of the soil ; there seems scarcely an inch
of vegetable earth upon it anywhere. The land is cut up into
very small freeholds ; there are said to be no less than 2,000 such
holdings in the neighbourhood of Fort Mahon. On again to San
Clemente, getting a fine view of the south side of the island, which
is broken up into a number of little bays and headlands. We
had brought our lunch with us in baskets furnished by the first
lieutenant, and these we now unpacked in a large and cool
salle-d-Tnanger belonging to an unoccupied house of one of the
cousins of the vice-consul, from the garden in front of which there
was an uninterrupted vista seawards. Afterwards we drove on to
the Talayot de Dalt, also in the shape of the letter "f : this points
endwise, due east and west. There is another large curious sloping
stone at an angle of 45** on its eastern side, as if to prop up this
end. Round this cromlech was a circle of stones, and also close by
two caves constructed of smaller stones like long flat-topped
pyramids, evidently for burial, apparently in imitation of a third
natural cave close by that had been used for the same purpose. As
the evening was now coming on we drove down the hill into the
town along the road, the sole remains of the French occupation of
seven years, and so off to the ship.

Oct. 15th. — Bathed again in the sea, the temperature of which was
70°, and then off at 9 A.M. in " three coaches *' — a party of eighteen
— for Monte Toro in the centre of the island, and higher than either
Snowdon or Ben Nevis. This day's excursion cost us 75«. lOd. ;
yesterday's cost in gross 48s. 8rf. We drove along a dusty road up
to the head of the harbour, which extends quite half a mile beyond
the town. Many palm trees grew beside the road, which soon leads
over a broken bridge, and out through a more fertile country than
that we passed through yesterday. In the fields the peasants are
using the primitive wooden plough, which is more suited for this
rough and stony soil than would be that of the English. After
passing the village of Alayor, we arrived at the foot of the hill
about noon, and there left the '* coaches " and walked up to the

1879. AT PORT MAHON. 13

monastery which is perched on the summit. One young priest is
now alone in charge : he received us in the open courtyard, in the
centre of which was a large well whose sides and mouth were covered
with maiden-hair and other ferns, and then conducted us into the
chapel. We saw there the grotto where the sacred wood-carved image
of the Virgin — which had been hidden away when the island was
ravished by Moorish pirates — was deposited in haste and forgotten
until the mysterious actions and ruminations of a bull once more
disclosed to the faithful its whereabouts. We could not help being
reminded of cei-tain Mithraic pictures when we saw the statue of
the Virgin with the bull at her feet. The little original wooden
image of the legend is shown up stairs behind the high altar; and
all round in the small chapel close to it, is a collection of ex voto
offerings, consisting chiefly of Spanish sailors' hat-ribbons and shiils
and other portions of clothes, and the usual wax figures of limbs,
etc., as the goddess is held in special reverence by seamen, and her
shrine is visible on high from all sides as they approach the island.
Tt was only last year that there was a large pilgrimage of devotion
to this very spot on the occasion of the Papal jubilee. We lunched
in the old refectory, and afterwards went up to the top of the tower
of the convent, nearly 5,000 feet above the level of the sea, from
whence Majorca was visible, twenty-five miles away to the south-
west. The whole island of Minorca, twenty miles long and eight
miles broad, bounded by the sea, glistening in the sunlight, and
with its coast indent,ed by bays, lay at our feet. There is a strange-
looking line of dark hills, volcano-like, running right across the
island. Coming down we picked and ate the prickly pear for
the first time, and those who did so incautiously carried the
remembrance of it for some time afterwards on their lips and
fingers in the shape of little white and numberless soft thorns,
which had the faculty of intruding themselves everywhere. The
soft interior of the pears, of a bright orange colour, was very
refreshing in the warmth of the day, and the taste resembles a
mash of medlars slightly flavoured with hips and haws. The
vice-consul told us they were good for the health, and that he
himself consumed a dozen every morning for his breakfast with
his cup of chocolate. Going home, some of the mids skylarking,
got down to play banditti, and jumped out from the side of the
road to seize the horses' heads, but were left behind to walk home
by their comrades, who whipped the said horses on, and arrived
at the ship at 5.30 P.M.

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE,

1879.

Oct. 15th, — ^After school landed with the captain and a couple of
our gunroom messmates to shoot partridges on the " Golden Farm,"
immediately to the east of where we lay. An old man went with
us with his dog Leila to show us the way. After walking up and
down in the furze and heather all the afternoon, the party, however,
only bagged three. There was a good wind and a few showers, and
we had a sharp appetite for our lunch, which we had brought in our
pockets and ate on the hillside under the shelter of some stones.
Another party went in a boat down the harbour and outside to try
and shoot pigeons, but were not very successful. The next day the
wind shifted round to the north and there was a change in the
temperature of nearly 10^

PORT MAHON TO PALERMO.

From Previous Noon.

At Noon.

Temperature.

Date.

Course.

a 66-80 E.
S. 74 E.
S. 86 E.

tal distance.

Distance,

Wind.

Lat.

Long.

Sea.

Air.

Sail.

steam.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.' 6 P.M.

Oct.
18
19S.
20
21

105
134
145

...
N.W. 5-4
N.W. 8-4
S.W. 4-5

iB.

39*-6

38-28

3816

6*40

9-26

12-27

6*4
64
65
64

64
64
65
64

65
67
70
69

64
66
68
71

431
4^

12.
13 mil(

Oct. ISth. — Left Port Mahon under steam at 2.15 P.M., and pro-
ceeded down and out of the harbour ; when clear of this we at
once stop steaming and raised the screw, made plain sail to a fair
wind from the north-west, our course being south-east, and thus went
on our way through the bright night towards the Sicilian shore.

1879.

PORT MAHON TO PALEBMO.

Oct, \dth, — Usual services, the wind nearly right aft and therefore
slight motion. The eflfects of the turron, a white rock made of
pressed almonds, sugar, and meal (the great Spanish sweetmeat),
which had been somewhat extensively purchased and eaten at Port
Mahon are manifestly visible in some members of the gunroom
mess, so that with a wise compunction, many cakes of it remaining
unconsumed were consigned to the deep.

Oct. 20^^. — A beautiful bright day, and we are sailing as steadily
and smoothly as possible. By noon we have made 134 miles. Cape
Spartivento and Sardiniahave been on our port beam all the morning.
At 11.30. P.M. we were all rousted out for night quarters.

Oct. 2\8t. — A fine bright morning, going along delightfully, over
six knots. Mids' drill with dumb-bells before breakfast started. At
9 A.M. the iEgades were on our starboard beam, and Maritimo, at
whose rocky appearance we were reminded of the vision in
Turner's picture, in the National Gallery, of the Cyclops. About
noon picked up the lovely coast of Sicily and opened the Bay
of Castellamare, whose slopes are clothed in vineyards down to the
water's edge, and with a valley running up inland, which in its turn
is covered with olive trees, while above, on the top of San Vito, is a
strange-looking fort. All the afternoon we sailed along skirting
the north coast of the island ; the line of hills, both those near and
those distant, being very picturesque with their reddish-grey and
sometimes purple colours. About 6 p.m. we tacked and rounded
the promontory of Monte Pelegrino and came in sight of Palermo.
We tacked several times to get into the bay, as the wind was very
variable under the high land, until it came oflf in a violent squall
with much rain, and we had to let go the anchor in thirty-three
fathoms, the cable running out to a clinch (150 fathoms) at 7 p.m.

AT PALERMO.

Temps&ature.

Datb. '

WiMD.

Oct. ■

22 i N.W. 4-7

28 I N.W. 2-4

24 ; Variable 1

25 ' Calm
26S. ! N.E. 1
27 N.E. 1

Se.

Air.

Noon. 1 0 P.M.

Noon

66
62
62
62
65
69

6 p.m.

65
64
65
63
64
65

64
65
64
64
64
64

66
60
60
60
64
67

16 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1870.

OcL 22nd, — At 8 A.M. hoisted the Italian flag at the main and
sahited it with twenty-one guns, and at 10 A.M. the vice-consul,
Mr. Eose, came off to call, and was saluted on leaving with seven.
The weather was squally and showery with fitful gleams of sun-
shine ; no one landed except the captain to pay official visits. The
view from where we are anchored (about two miles from the shore)
is bounded ^by the high hill of Monte Pelegrino on the right, with
the statue of St. Rosalia on the summit ; round behind this stretches
the valley of Concha d'Oro ; immediately in front is the amphi-
theatre of high hills of bold and varied forms ; beyond Palermo the
monastery of Mon Reale is clearly visible on their slopes five miles
away, and the straight line of road stretching up from the town
to it

Oct, 2Srd. — After morning school Eddy and three mids went
with the captain up Monte Pelegrino, and to the grotto where
St. Rosalia's bones were discovered in 1626.

Palermo is the old Greek and Roman Panormus. Founded by
the Phoenicians it became the capital of the Carthaginian posses-
sions in Sicily: was taken 254 B.C. by the Romans from the
Carthaginians — an almost virgin fortress which had never yet been
taken but by Pyrrhus — the Caithaginian capital of the island, the
head-quarters of its armies and fleets, and was held by Metellus
when he beat off Hasdrubal and took the first elephants as trophies
from the Carthaginians, and sent them up across the Straits of
Messina to Rome.

Seven years afterwards Monte Pelegrino was suddenly seized by
Hamilcar, to command Palermo, then in the hands of the Romans.
This hill, like Eryx, rises to a height of 2,000 feet, but on two sides
sheer from the sea : a third side rises equally perpendicularly from
the plain of Concha d'Oro, while by the fourth alone, which directly
faces Panormus at a distance of a mile and a half, is the plateau at its
top at all accessible. This stronghold Hamilcar seized, and held for
three and a half years, in sight of the Roman garrison at Panormus;
and in spite of all their efforts to dislodge him, left it at last only
of his own free will, to occupy a similar position elsewhere. At its
base is a little cove into which his light ships might run with pirate
spoil, accessible from the plateau he occupied, but not from other
parts of the shore. There was an abundant spring of water on its
summit, and the plateau he was able to cultivate with success.
From the rounded top that crowned the whole was a post of
obseiTation to observe all the country round, and in case of need

1879. PALERMO. 17

it would be an acropolis. The ultimate result of Hamilcar's patient
struggles here was the victorious march of his son Hannibal on
Borne. Day after day he sallied from this natural fastness, like a
lion from his den, on to the fair plains of Sicily; or with his
galleys from the cove to attack the other Roman towns in Sicily or
Italy : till he retired to Eryx — a similar stronghold, forty miles to
the west, and held that for two years, till the battle of the -ZEgatian
Islands won by the Roman fleet over that of Carthage, ended the first
Punic war, the longest and the greatest the world had then seen,
and one in which, perhaps, the loss of human life was greater than
in any other war waged on earth, to be followed by twenty-two
years of peace. Sicily then fell wholly to Rome, but with its pros-
perity gone, which it has never wholly recovered, and its cities
wasted.

Oct. 24th. — Landed at 10 A.M. with a party of six officers from the
ward-room, and a dozen from the gun-room, and went with the
consul, first to the museum, where we saw, amongst other things
the oldest Greek sculptures known, discovered in 1826, at Selinunte ;
the feet of the female figures, in the ten metopes, and their arms
and hands were of white marble, but not those of the male figures
which are of the same dark brown stone throughout. In the same
room were some old Phoenician stone coffins, and in the next many
Etruscan and Roman sarcophagi with reclining figures on top,
most of these rested on their left elbow, and each was holding an
obolus : the wistful, eager look on some of the faces, as they lay
waiting for Charon was very striking, that on the face of one figure
of a blind man especially so. In the same building there is a
large collection of pictures, but only a few are worthy of notice ; the
chief treasure is a small triptych of the school of Van Eyck, which
is shown in a little room by itself, representing the Virgin with
Child between St. Catherine and St. Dorothy.

We then drove oflf in three carriages to Monreale, through the
town which forms a parallelogram, and is divided into four quar-
ters by four broad streets, and where these intersect in the centre
of the town there is an octagonal space with four groups of statues.
One street, the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, over a mile long,
stretches straight away from the Porta Felice on the esplanade,
up past the cathedral and the palace to the Porta Nuova,
whence the road leads out to Monreale. The other main street
which cuts this at right angles is the Via Macqueda, which they
have rechristened Via Qaribaldi. Up the hill to Monreale for the

VOL. I. c

18 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. r879.

greater parfc of the way the tramcars run, until the road, about half a
mile from the church, becomes too winding. We were entertained
as we drove along by stories of the brigands, and one house just
outside Monreale, on the left-hand side of the road going up,
now in ruins, but still, in its square tower-like shape, bearing
evidence of its former strength, was pointed out to us as the spot
where, last year, a band of these gentlemen made their final stand,
and were shot down by Bersaglieri. We drive up to the front of
the church, which we enter through the bronze gates at the end of
the nave.

The white marble sides of the basilica with the mosaic
pictures running along all round the church above, and covering
every foot of the walls and arches, represent scenes from the Old
and New Testament : they end with a giant figure of Christ over
the central apse, under whom is represented the Madonna on her
throne : the impression apparently sought to be conveyed, by the
whole, is the linking together of earth and heaven, by means of
the Incarnation.^

^ Sicily was conquered from the Arabs (1060) by the Normans, another oflfshoot
from the race wlio jnst about the same time took England from Harold. Under them
the Greek and Arab elements continued to sulwist in the population, the Greek and
Arab languages held their own beside the Latin, and the established industries con-
tinued to flourish. The work8hox>s for the silk embroideiy and Arab and Byzantine
art were close to the royal palace.

The mosaics date from the beginning of the eleventh century, and the earliest were
executed by designers who had come from Constantinople. They were assisted by
native workmen, their pupils drawn from the Greek and Arab population of the
island ; on the best the inscriptions are Greek, on the inferior, Latin.

Roger, son of the first Norman conqueror (d. 1154), assumed the title of King of
Sicily ; the best mosaics belong to his brilliant reign. The other churches of Palermo,
in the architecture of which early Christian, Byzantine, and Arab elements are fantas-
tically blended, are everywhere covered with mosaic pictures, in the Byzantine mode
of decoration in all its splendour.

** The great mass of ornament produced in Sicily during the reign of King Rogor
is a lasting witness of his exemplary government, under which, thanks to regular
administration and sound finance, this land enjoyed the highest prosperity. Court
patronage of art was interrupted during the licentious reign of his successor,
William L, who was sunk in Oriental luxury. But again under his grandson,
William 11. (1166 — 1189), the last prince of this house, there arose the cathedral of
Monreale, begun 1172, through the private munificence of the king, and the chief
ecclesiastical monument of his dynasty. "

The mosaics at Monreale form a series more extensive and of greater richness than
those in the other churches. Stories from the Old Testament fill two rows along the
upper walls of the nave from the entrance ; they are bordered above by a rich ornamental
fneze with busts of .angels ; the side aisles and the transept, as the continuation of these,
contain the whole of the Gospel story. The scenes from the childhood of Christ find
their place just at the arches of the central dome above figures of patriarchs and
prophets ; the Annunciation surmounts the arch of the tribune, as in the Capella
ralatina ; and again, as there, the vaulting of the apse is occupied by a colossal half-
length of Christ, while on the wall below this sits the Virgin enthroned with the
Child between two rows of saints. Two pictures of King William II., first as crowned
by Christ, and next as presenting the model of the church to the Madonna, are placed

1879. PALERMO. 19

We went up into the choir, and into the sacristy, and were
shown the images of silver, and the jewelled crosiers and the
Archbishop's mitre and other treasures; but many of these are
said to be sham. There was, however, an old chest with a real
Arabic inscription on top. We went on into several side chapels,
in one of which was some most intricate wood carving, both on
the doors and round the sides. From these we went out to the
cloister quadrangle with its arcade of pointed arches, twenty-
five on each side, and, after walking round, examined the 200
capitals of the pillars, no two of which are the same, though all are
most elaborately carved either with figures or foliage ; the pillars
themselves were originally adorned with different patterns in
mosaic, though this is now gone in many places. Then into the
refectory with its white marble floor, and a fountain in the centre
with St. Benedict looking down on the emptiness around, for since
the secidarisation of the religious houses none of his followers
are allowed openly to show themselves in his habit. Here we
unpacked our baskets and had lunch : a few children looking on.
These youngsters we were told belong to a small school established
by government in some of the outlying buildings of the monastery,
the sole representatives of learning supported by the confiscated
funds of this once flourishing and world-famous endowment.

We drove back to the city, stopping at the Ziza (about a mile
outside the Porta Nuova), a square, Saracenic building of three
stories; on one side is a sort of recessed hall, vaulted with
Alhambra-like decoration, and a fountain in the pavement below.

in the transept over chairs of state. The mosaics were all finished before the death
of the king, 1189.

"The Sicilian mosaics are free from all the barbaric features of Italo-mediaeval art.
The old Byzantine tradition prevails in them, according to which everything is
jn-escribed and unalterable — the types, the choice of motives and figures, and the
mode of conceiving them, the arrangement of the picture in its given space, are
deeply-studied and invariably simple, so that the eye of the spectator quickly finds
itself at home," and is able to realise the symbolism wherein the mystery of the
Incarnation of the creative Word is always set forth in its various stages, past, present,
and future. '* The principal figures are dignified and solemn, well proportioned, and
not too attenuated. Motives of great beauty and nobility often appear, as in the
angels in the dome of the Capella Palatina. In many of tne saints dignity is often
near to grimness."

** Great precision is shown throughout in the fitting of the glass cubes — a point in
which these Sicilian mosaics far surpass those of Rome of the same perioa. The
gold ground everywhere prevails, and the colours are finely brought into accord with
It ; the modelling is powerful with delicate greenish-grey shadows in the flesh, all
the colour effects attainable by the art, as shading with a second colour and laying on
the light of the draperies in gold, are brought into requisition."

This descriptirin of the mosaics is taken frcm History of Painting ^ p. 841,
Wohmann and Wcermann, edited by Sidney Colvin.

C 2

20 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1879.

Then on to the Capuchin monastery, and down into the catacombs.
This was one of the sights of Palermo in most favour with the
blue-jackets ; nearly all found their way here when on shore. The
catacombs are lofty stone-arched vaults extending beneath the
church, and all along their sides, right up to the tops of the arches,
are deposited the bodies of the dead entrusted to the keeping of
the monastery. These bodies are first of all buried for one year in
the dry soil outside, which exercises a peculiar preserving power
upon them, so that when they are dug up at the end of that time
and brought into this place they can be then kept for as long a time
as their relatives or friends desire to come and see them on every
2nd of November, or All Souls' Day. The bodies are arranged in
every attitude, some sitting, others standing or lying down, and are
representative of every age and station in life — old and young, boys
and girls. In some cases alongside or on the breast of the
mummified and grinning skeleton of the dead is hung a small
likeness or photograph of the same in life, and in others the little
brown and dried-up corpse of a baby is decorated with silks and
lace, and laid out in a handsome cradle beneath a glass shade. The
whole efifect is very ghastly. While we were there a man arrived
and asked to be shown the remains of his relative, and was at once
taken by the custodian down one of the aisles to the case said to
contain them ; after regarding these, however, for some time with
care, he began to whine and complain that they were not really
those of his friend, so was led piteously complaining up and down
the place until at last they found the right coffin.

Od. 25th. — Went with party to visit the cathedral. The old one
was built by an Englishman, who was archbishop here in the twelfth
century. Only the crypt of that now remains, and in that he is
buried. The pillars of the triple porch were formerly used in a Saracen
mosque. On first entering, the contrast of the Italian style of the
interior is very great to that of the Gothic of the outside. In thp
south-west of the nave we saw the red porphyry sarcophagi and
hearse-like canopies of the Norman kings and German emperors,
dating from 1154 to the close of that century ; then up to the
shrine of St. Rosalia in the chapel on the south side of the choir, in
which are some beautiful arabesque carvings in marble. Behind a
brass grating in the wall is the solid silver chest weighing nearly a
ton made in 1631 to contain the bones of the patron saint.

After walking round the outside of the cathedral we drove to
the Palazzo Beale, and went into the Capella Palatina. It was

1879. PALERMO. 21

fortunately a sunny day, and thus the mosaics which incrust the
whole interior of the church, roof and walls, were able to be
examined. They ai-e more impressive even than those at Monreale,
being smaller and older and more concentrated. Large coloured
plates of them are being published in a work entitled La Capella
di S. Pieiro nella Regia di Palermo, This building was begun 1132,
and most of the mosaics were finished eleven years afterwards.
The pavement and lower panelling of the walls in marble and
porphyry surpasses in finish, if that were possible, even the works
of the South Italian mainland. The columns of the nave are
alternately of Egyptian granite and white marble. They come
from old Saracenic buildings. In the upper part of the pictures on
the west wall is a full length figure of Christ enthroned between
St. Peter and St. Paul ; the centre nave has figures of prophets
between the arches, and scenes from the Old Testament ; on the side
aisles are the stories of St. Peter and St. Paul, and in the transept
the Gospel history. Grandest of all are the compositions closing in
the end. In the main apse the Virgin prays with uplifted hands,
enthroned among saints ; and in the vaulting there is a gigantic
half-length figure of the Saviour teaching, and two corresponding
half-lengths of apostles in the side apses. The Annunciation is
depicted above the arch of the tribune ; then come representations of
niches in mosaic, with saints in the drum of the dome, and above
in the dome itself stand the archangels with large wings ; each holds
in his right hand the wand of a messenger, and in his left the globe
marked with the sign of the Cross, as belonging to the Lord ; each
is habited as warrior, or deacon, or civilian ; and in the centre of the
dome is a picture of Christ's head as the Word, with book in left
hand, and the right upraised in blessing, the fingers arranged as in
Greek rite. The Greek inscription runs round the circle, " Heaven
is my throne, and the earth the footstool of my feet, saith the
Lord Almighty."

We then went to the church of S. Giuseppe in the city, and
down into the crypt beneath, where there is a strange shrine
containing the original mosaic of the Virgin, before which King
Roger was crowned ; and several other mysterious altars, before
one or two of which devotees were earnestly praying. Then to
La Martorana, which is being restored to its original size, and the
renaissance additions made in 1590 and 1685 removed. Beneath
the steps of the quadrangular chapel at the east end we saw the
foundations of the three old semi-circular apses. The two mosaics

22 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1879.

on either side the nave, King Roger crowned by our Lord, and the
admiral of King Roger dedicating his church to the Virgin, are the
only ones that were saved when the western end was taken down
in the seventeenth century. Scaffolding was erected all over the
interior, and apparently the ancient mosaics were being rather
knocked about. The pictures from the legend of the Virgin in La
Martorana (Santa Maria del Ammiraglio, founded 1143) were
completed, according to an inscription in the apse, A,D. 1148. The
semi-dome of the apse is here again filled with the bust of Christ ;
on the wall immediately below appears the Virgin between angels,
and two lower bands contain the apostles, while the walls and
arches of the presbytery are decorated with busts and figures of
Old Testament personages and saints. The old square tower with
four stories, each smaller than the one below it, stands apart from
the church.

We drove thence to the Hotel des Palmes. This and the
Trinacria at the other end of the town are kept now by the same
landlord — Ragusa. He bought the house from Ingham, the wine
merchant. It contains numerous rooms opening on to a flat roof
and looking out into a pleasant garden, and on to the English
church close by. We had a regular Sicilian lunch, and tasted
many sorts of native wine. In the afternoon we drove out to
La Favorita, a Chinese palace built by King Bomba. We went
over this, saw the room painted to resemble the interior of a
damp and mouldy cavern ; even mildew and slimy fungi on the
roof were imitated. We saw also the room in which the dinner
was served without attendants, the table sinking beneath the
floor at the end of each course, and then rising again. The
best thing in the palace was the view from the summit, with its
two glimpses of the sea, one by Capo di Gallo at the northern end
of the valley, and the other beyond Palermo at the southern.
Returning we visited the Villa Whitaker and its fine gardens,
after walking in which some time we drove back in the dusk and
then went off to the ship.

On Monday the 27th the Bacchantes had their first cricket match,
it was played between two elevens of officers and men : first half
of the Alphabet against the second ; the latter winning, their
score being 124 against 118. We had lunch on the ground, which
was the plateau at the foot of Monte Pelegrino, from which
a wide view over the town. Some of the party besides set up
lawn-tennis nets. Before going off to the ship visited the

1879.

PALERMO TO MESSINA.

preserved fruit shop in the centre of the towD, where there was
a glorious collection ; took a box on board and sent another home
to England to sisters.

PALERMO TO MESSINA.

1
Date.

Distance.
Steam.

Wind.

Oct.
28
29
30

120
13

E.2
S.W. 2-8
S.W. 3-4

Temperature.

Sea.

Air.

Noon. 1 6 P.M.

Noon. 1 6 p.M

64
69
69

66
70
68

68
68
67

66
66
66

Oct, 2Sth, — Had a good bathe from the ship's side before morning
drill. After sending our mails ashore we left the anchorage off
Palermo under steam at about 4 p.m., proceeding thirty revolutions,
draught of water forward nineteen feet six inches, and aft twenty-
four feet three inches. When we weighed the whole bay happened
to be covered with small boats, the men in which were shooting
larks. These birds were making for the shore in great numbers,
migrating southwards from Europe, and were thus welcomed on
their arrival. For some time after we had got under way we
could hear the imitation bird-calls, used by the Sicilians to lure

24 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1879.

them to destruction, and the almost incessant popping of the
scatter-guns. It was a beautiful moonlight night. Before turning
in we had passed Alicudi.

Oct, 29th. — Up at 5.30 A.M. to see Stromboli and found we were
steaming slowly along its northern side which rose in a dark
triangular mass in the dusk of dawn, over 3,000 feet high. The
cone on the summit was only smoking, but halfway down the side
towards us three flames in succession broke out and played about
like will-o'-the-wisps. About 7 A.M. we heard a rumbling as of a
discharge of cannon. As you look up at the jagged edges of the
crater with a little imagination it would be easy to believe they
were figures of demons or anything else. We steamed slowly all
round the island, on the east side of which is a small village and
landing place, and then shaped course for the Straits of Messina.
After breakfast we saw Volcano, the most southerly of the Lipari
group smoking in the distance to the westward. Shortly after
11 A.M. passed Italian fleet, two ironclads and a gunboat steering
north. We saluted the rear-admiral's flag with thirteen guns as
we passed, which was returned by his flagship the Venetia, It
was afternoon when we steamed slowly down the straits and had
our first sight of the Scylla Bock on the Italian shore, and of
Charybdis the small whirlpool formed by the tide under the
opposite shore of Sicily close to the Faro. The winds and
currents are, and must always have been, uncertain in these straits,
and their navigation for small sailing ships, especially when there
is very little wind and consequently a great deal of drifting,
difficult. The high table-land of Italy seemed to tower up on our
port-hand, and its mountain-perched towns, yellow- walled, flat-
roofed, and tiled, were exactly like the pictures we had seen of
them in Turner s illustrations. We anchored oflf Messina outside
the harbour at 2.40 P.M. : and received here a despatch from
Admiral Hornby Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean
squadron recommending us to proceed to Catania as it was the
best place from which to ascend Etna as he himself had lately
done. He stated that he would be unable to meet or inspect the
Bacchaivte, but wished her a very pleasant cruise when she left
his station.

Oct. 30^A. — Left the ship at 4 a.m. and landed, a party of
seventeen, in two boats at the quay, drove to the station and took
the train which left at 5 a.m. for Taormina. The railway runs

1879. TAORMINA. 25

along the coast within sight of the sea most part of the way, and

crosses several broad watercourses, at this time of the year dry

and filled with boulders ; it is only in the spring that they are

torrents ; the old forests have for the most part been cut down and

burnt, but the cactus hedges stretch away on all sides, as well as

the olives, some of the cactus trees of great thickness and age.

The monasteries have all been secularised and their lands sold by

the Government for two million pounds, those who first purchased

them have since resold them at much profit. The depreciation in

the currency so that twenty-eight francs of paper money is equal

to one pound English, tells its own tale. On arriving at Taormina

we walked up the hill, 700 feet above the sea, taking three-quarters

of an hour about it, to the H6tel de Belle Vue. Some of the

party rode on donkeys and a few went in the carriage, those who

walked were able to cut oflF the comers of the winding road. We

breakfasted at the hotel and afterwards walked through the town

by the Saracenic palace in the market-place and in front of the

church, with its painful statues of souls enduring the tortures of

purgatory, up to the peak of Mola, two thousand and eighty-three

feet, with the village of the same name at its summit. It was a

fine climb and the view looking down over the mountainous

valleys • covered with vines and olives, and away to the sea, was

magnificent. We were to have gone up Monte Venere, but it

was too wet and its summit was covered by a cloud. The top of

Etna too is cloud-covered to-day but the long and grand slope of

its eastern side stretching away up to the spot whence the recent

eruption took place and from which smoke is still issuing, is

clearly visible. We then walked on to Santa Maria della Rocca,

where the Saracenic ruin on the summit is finer than that on

Mola. All the soil hereabouts is volcanic, and we gathered

specimens of the three several kinds of lava that have been

ejected from Etna at various times, and which are very distinct

the one from the other. We then went back and up to the Greek

and Roman theatre which was the most interesting thing we saw

that day. It is difficult to say whether the view off the terrace

on its very summit looking away towards the north, or that to the

south looking out across the ruined stage, is the more extensive

and impressive ; below on the left is the sea, blue and smooth, on

the right the mountain ranges green and brown, in front the red

Roman brick, and the grey marble of the older Greek building ;

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1879.

all these colours contrast and harmonise together in the fore-
ground, while in the distance rises Etna in its majesty. We were
shown, amongst other antiquities, the torso of what is said to be
the Eros of Praxiteles. We walked down to the station past a
number of Saracenic tombs on the hillside ; they are hollow plastered
receptacles, each just large enough to contain a human body, and
arranged above each other in tiers, but have lately been cut through
by the road ; the bones of many Saracens are stQl lying in them.
We got into the train at 4 p.m., and were on board the Bacchante
again at Messina by 6.30 p.m.

MESSI^^A TO GIBRALTAR.

1 i I r-i~

— »*

Date.

Oct.

Nov.

2S.

From PRE^^oc8 Nooh.

Distance.

Cotine.

I Soil .steam.

...

N. 88 W.
S. 86 W.
S. 80 W.

s. 7a w.

...
172

154

189
162

S. 76 W.

191

...

Wind.

S.W. 1-2

N.E. 8-6

E. 8-6

N.E. and

S.E. 6-4
N. 31

At Noon.

Temperature.

Sea.

Air.

Tjit i Long. I-

N.
38-21

38-25
38 16
37-49
37 16

36-27

Noon 6 KM ■ Noon.' <J p.m

15 7

11-52

67 ,

7-5-2

4-30

0-58

2-53

65
66
65
64

Oct, Z\st. — We left Messina at daybreak 6.30 A.M. and steamed
back up the straits, and after we passed Faro fell in with a nice
breeze to which we made all possible sail, steering to the westward.
The breeze, however, after breakfast died away entirely and we
remained under steam all the day. After evening quarters, usual

1879. MESSINA TO GIBRALTAR. 27

recreations on the quarter-deck, we were then passing close beside
Volcano, with Lipari, and Celina on our starboard hand, and at
midnight we passed Palermo on the port.

Nov. \st — At sunrise we can still see the coast of Sicily in the
distance, and at 8 A.M. we have the iEgades on our portbeam ; there
is no wind, and at noon Europa Point (Gibraltar) is distant 837
miles. After evening quarters there was more "slinging the
monkey," the secret of success in which, when you are the monkey,
appears to be to get well through the slings, otherwise if they are
close under the arms you are practically helpless. In the evening
we had four or five hours' fog. After dinner much amusement
trying to sit on an empty quart bottle on the dock, at the same time
holding a candle in each hand, one of which was lighted, and the
other to be lighted from it without rolling over.

Nov, 3rrf. — About noon a strong Levanter sprung up to which
we made all possible sail, stopped the engines, raised the screw
and so went bowling along between seven and eight knots ; this
lasted also the whole of the next day, so that on Wednesday, the
fifth, we passed Cape de Gatte at 8 a.m. and had a fine sight again
of the Sierra Nevada covered with snow. In the afternoon a
steamer (the Sicilian) steering eastward made signal that she
wished to communicate ; so we accordingly hove to and waited for
her to close us. In the meanwhile we were speculating as to
whether she had any news of importance for us from Gibraltar, or
whether she wanted the services of one of our two junior doctors.
AH that was required, however, was a chart of the Adriatic which
the captain then sent on board in one of our cutters. She thanked
us and we both proceeded on our way.

Nov. 6th. — At 4.30. a.m. observed Europa Light, the southernmost
point of Gibraltar Bock bearing west by south, and soon after day-
light throucjh the misty morning saw the dark shadowy form of the
island-like fortr ess towering up on the starboard bow. We altered
course and stood away under sail whilst steam was being raised ;
got the screw down and at 7.30. A.M. began steaming and came in
and secured alongside the New Mole by 9.40 A.M. Mr. Q. A. Sceales,
assistant paymaster, joined. At 3.30 P.M. walked up from the dock-
yard along the Alameda to the Convent to call on Lord and Lady
Napier of Magdala, who have arrived since we were here a month
ago, and afterwards up to Captain Edye's to tea and eat fruit in
the garden. Another of our messmates of the same term as
ourselves in the Britannia passed to-day for midshipman.

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1879.

Da-he.

AT GIBRALTAR.

I Tempkratubb.

Fea.

Air.

Xoon. 6 P.M. Xonn 0 p.m.

Nov.

Variable 1

W. 1-3

9S.

S W. 2-3

S.2 3

S.E. 1-3

Calm

Nov. 7th. — In the afternoon at 2.30 p.m. a party of four of us from
the gun-room started from the Mole on horses and were conducted
by Colonel Lemprifere, R.E., up to the Gun Rock, the northernmost
of the three highest points on the ridge. Here we witnessed some
curious practice made by men of the Rifle Brigade firing down on
to a target in Catalan Bay. Then on along the ridge to the signal
station the central point of the Rock 1294 feet above the sea.
All the ships passing the Straits are signalled from this station and
reported to the governor below and from him to Lloyd's. We see
the hills of Spain away to the north, with the Sierra Nevada in the
extreme distance ; across the Straits Ceuta (at the foot of the other
more lofty pillar ]^of Hercules, Ape's Hill), thirteen miles away,
glistens on the African coast, and on the west, across Gibraltar Bay,
five miles distant, is Algesiras ; the town of Gibraltar fringes the
base of the rock on this side at our feet.

The Rock is six miles altogether all round ; its north, south, and
east sides are rugged and nearly perpendicular. It is on the west
side only that it is accessible from the sea; on this side is the town and
the fortificationa At the signal station we looked over the log-roll of
the monkeys, which is kept duly posted up every day both as to the
numbers that were observed, the hour, and the direction they were
seen to be coming from, and going towards. Yesterday twenty-two
were observed, but they are fast increasing in numbers ; as no one
is allowed to molest them. Then on to O'Hara s tower, the most
southern peak of the ridge (1361 feet), and down the rock-hewn Medi-
terranean stairs to the governor's summer cottage which being on the
eastern side of the rock is sheltered from the sun after mid-day, and

1879.

GIBRALTAR.

to Monkey Cove ; in the cave near which there was a huge fig tree
growing, and a number of birds perpetually flying in and out. We
then mounted our horses which had been sent round to meet us
below and so home through the Europa Point barracks to the
landing place. In the evening we dined at the Convent.

Nov. ^th. — Started at 9 A.M. with two messmates in the steam
pinnace and went right along past the town up to the landing
place on the neutral ground, where Colonel Lempri^re met us
with horses, which we there mounted and rode along the beach
through the Spanish lines to San Roque, five miles distant, where

Scale of English Miles

ALQECIRAS "*_ M-uflfcRALTAR

we went into the bull ring (which was of course quite empty) and
after enjoying the view from the Alameda rode on to the Pine
Woods. Here Lieutenant Bartle Frere overtook and rode with us
the rest of the day. In crossing one of the streams the horse
ridden by one of the BaccharUes lieutenants lay down and began
to roll: the rider was chiefly disconcerted because the riding
trousers he was wearing were borrowed. We lunched in the Pine
Woods on the turf and afterwards again rode on through the
second Pine Woods, over rivers and by streams to the Cork Woods,
three miles further, with more than one scamper when there was
a stretch of turf; the best riding, however, was when we came down

30 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1879.

on to the sand of the bay which was quite firm. Here too, looking
southwards, the view of the Rock from end to end (three miles long
from north to south) is perhaps more effective than elsewhere. You
see the three summits — Gun Rock, Signal Station, and O'Hara s
Tower — and how completely isolated it is and parted oflf like an
island from the mainland of Spain. It has probably been lifted
at a comparatively recent geological epoch, for a marine sea-beach
exists at more than 450 feet above the present sea-level. The
highest point of the rock (1,467 feet high) seems nearly in the centre
of the quasi island, which is six miles in circumference. As the
sun went down, and the air became cooler after rather a warm
day, the ride home by the side of the waves that broke crisply
at our feet was most enjoyable.

i\^(9t?. 9tk, — Prince of Wales s birthday. At 8 A.M. dressed ship.
In the afternoon went for a walk in the lower galleries which were
tunnelled in tiers inside the precipitous north cliff in 1789 and
1790 ; they are simply rock passages two or three miles in extent
with loopholes here and there guarded by guns. Then to the upper
galleries which, constructed in the same way, wind about behind
the face of the north cliflf of the Rock, till they lead up a huge
cave called St. George's Hall from which we looked out through
the open rock ports down on to Catalan Bay and on to the British
and Spanish lines on the neutral ground, as the sandy isthmus
connecting Gibraltar with the mainland of Spain is called ; a long
flat reach of about 200 acres scarcely above sea level. Looking up-
wards from the Windsor gallery the outline of a strange-featured
head is seen apparently on the Rock side. Colonel Lempri^ro
and Colonels C*)ddington and Mostyn of the 23rd Regiment met
us and took us round.

Gibraltar (the name this quasi island rock has held since the
Moors overflowed into Europe, is a corruption of Saracenic
Jebel-Tor, the Tower Mountain) was taken by the Spaniards from
the Moors in 1465, and by Sir George Rooke from the Spaniards in
1704 when garrisoned by only eighty men. France and Spain
laid siege to it continuously for four years 1779 — 1783. Its
importance as a depot for coal has greatly increased since all
war, and nearly all trade, ships are moved entirely by steam
power. It has now belonged to England for just three-fourths of the
length of time for which it belonged to Castile before us.

Rov, 10 th. — At 2.30 P.M. regatta of Bacchante's boats and others
from garrison and town. During this there was a dance on board

H
0

>5
CO

1879. GIBRALTAR. 31

all the afternoon. Our launch won her first victory. Towards the
conclusion of the dance the captain displayed his electric light for
the first time. The ship's company had extra-supper provided for
them in the evening in honour of the Prince of Wales's birthday.

Nov. Wth, — At 7 A.M. began coaling ship, and at 1.30 P.M. had
taken in 275 tons. General leave was given to starboard watch.
At 9.30 A.M. landed with commander and six midshipmen at the
jetty where Colonel Lempri^re and Major Quilbard met us with
horses which we mounted and then rode along with Lord Napier
through the Spanish lines and by the beach to the first Venta,
the meet to-day of the Calpe hounds. The large cavalcade
then crossed the river, which was so swollen that the water was
above most of the horses' girths, and several of the hounds had to
be carried across by the huntsman, as the current was too strong
for them to swim. We soon found two foxes, the first of which
was killed at once, but the second gave us a good run of over an
hour, up hills, down ravines, among the rocks, in a most eccentric
manner ; though the riding was rough we enjoyed it very much
and then rode off to the second Venta, to which Lady Napier had
driven out, and where lunch was spread under the trees. After
this was over we raced each other back into Gibraltar over the
sands, taking care however not to get entangled with the fishing
nets which were spread out to dry all over the beach in front of
the village outside the lines. We had the same view of the
Rock as on Saturday, only to-day more than half of it is enveloped
in cloud. We got inside the gates just before dusk. The Colonel
and officers of the 71st Regiment, H. L. I., gave a dinner to
the Captain and officers of the Bacchante. Sergeant F. Taylor,
R. M. L. I., gymnastic instructor, who came out from England
in the P. and O. steamer, Bokhara, joined the ship to-day.

Nov. 12^A.— There was a cricket match to-day between the
Bacchante and the officers of the Rifle Brigade on the neutral ground
by the north front ; we walked out to this, but soon afterwards had
to return to the ship to see the Spanish Governor of Algesiras.
who had come over that morning in a gunboat to call on Lord
Napier and afterwards had gone to the Bacchante. We then went
to play lawn-tennis at Colonel Mostyn's. We dined that evening
at Captain Edye's and afterwards went to a dance at the Convent.
The dumb-bells and clubs are being made here.

Nov. \Zth — Had a good bathe in the morning at Rosia Bay.
Gave general leave to Port Watch (forty-eight hours). On board

32 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1879.

at school as usual till 1 P.M., aud then to lunch with Colonel
Macdonald and the officers of the 7lst Regiment at the Europa
barracks. After this, rode on ponies to St. Michael's cave, the
entrance to which is on the western slope of the rock, 1,000
feet up. The cave was illuminated by blue and green lights,
to see which several of the officers had come up. The stalactites
have been much broken and discoloured, but the high vaulted roofs
and weird darkness of the gaping distance were impressive. The
story is that these caves go down and narrow into a passage that
runs beneath the Straits right away to Ape's Hill near Ceuta, and
that the rock monkeys crossed this way. We then walked down
to a garden party at Captain Edye's to which Lord and Lady
Napier had come. Dined on board the ship and then went to
Garrison Officers' Amateur Theatricals, at which the Parter*s Kmot
and Critic were played. After this the officers of the Rifle
Brigade gave a supper in their mess-room close by.

Nov, 14ith. — We went to Rosia Bay to bathe before breakfast and
stayed on board for usual school all the morning. Lord Ormonde
came to lunch from his yacht the Mirage, Dined in the evening
at the Convent, and afterwards went on the Alameda with Lord
Napier to see a torch-light tatoo of the troops of the garrison.
Unfortunately it came on foggy, though when the Highlanders
marched up and threw down their torches into the central bonfire
causing the whole gardens for a moment to be brilliantly lit up,
the effect as we stood on the steps at their southern end was
very fine.

Nov. 15fh. — Called at the Convent and bade good-bye to the
governor and Lady Napier and then on board, busy writing for the
mail to England. We cast oflf from the Mole at 4 P.M. ; the governor
came on board the last thing to wish us a pleasant cruise, and so
ended our ten days' very happy stay at Gibraltar, where every one
had been most kind and hospitable. We steamed across the bay
westward passing close by the Pearl Rock. Dark rainclouds
were hanging over the Spanish mainland, which as soon as the
sun set broke up with heavy showers, but the evening turned
out fine.

Nov. 16ih. — Usual morning and afternoon service ; and after the
latter rove the screw purchase, up screw and made sail, though there
was scarcely any wind ; what little there was came from the north-
west ; we made scarcely a knot all the night. Saw our first whale
blowing this afternoon.

1879.

GIBRALTAR TO MADEIRA.

Date.

Frox Previous Noon.

At Noon.

Temperature.

Course.

Distance.

Wind.

Lat.

Long.

Sea.

Air.

Ball.

Steam.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Nov.

...

S.W. 1-3

16S.

S. 71 W.

...

N.W. 2-3

35 31

7-10

S. 70 W.

105

E. 3-5

84-49

9-40

S. 69-30^.

115

...

S.E. 2-5

34-9

11-60

S. 72 W.

135

S.W. 3-7

33-28

14-26

N. 53 W.

...

N.W. 5-7,
S.W. 2-3

34-8

15-30

S. 81 W.

N.W. 1-7

32-52

16-25

429

215

tal distance 644 miles.

Nov. 17th. — Began using the new dumb-bells and clubs with
Sergeant Taylor before breakfast on the quarter-deck for driU. The
wind has shifted to the east, and by noon we have made good 150
miles, going all the morning between seven and eight knots as
there is a beautiful breeze. The contrast between the quiet and
routine of the ship and the rushing about on shore at Gibraltar is
very jolly.

Nov. ISth. — Still sailing along very pleasantly. At noon we had
made 115 miles, and are now 256 miles from Madeira. We began
our French with Mr. Sceales to-day, and shall have an hour apiece,
at least, with him every day. During the supper hour, nearly all
the gun-room were flying round at gymnastics with the new sergeant
and new gear, and two or three of the ward-room joined us and

VOL. I. D

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1879.

stretched their muscles at the usual " after evening quarters." The
next morning was moist and clammy as the wind had shifted to the
west-south-west. At 1.30. p.m., the breeze, after going all round the
compass, sprung up from the south-south-west, when we wore ship
and made for the rest of the day six knots. On Thursday morning
(the 20th), however, it all died away and became variable, during
which we wore ship two or three times, until at 5 P.M. we got
the screw down, and at 8.30 P.M. commenced steaming. The
barometer is falling, though at present the night is bright, but
in the middle watch we fell in with a heavy cross-swell and the
ship began to show us what she could do in the way of rolling

" AFTER EVEKINO QUARTERS."

(30*^, and this continued all the morning and day. We sighted
Porto Santo on the starboard bow at 7 A.M. on the 21st. As we
steam past, it looks a nice quiet bay sheltered from this heavy
swell from the south-west. Went to general quarters, amid rolling,
blowing and raining, but we got out of the swell as soon as we
passed San Lorenzo point. Game-to off Funchal at 5 P.M., saluting
the Portuguese flag with twenty-one guns. Mr. Consul Heywood
came oflF. The Himalaya, Captain Brent, was steaming out of
the roads with troops for the Cape when we arrived. They have
had very heavy weather from the south-west here during the last
few days.

1879.

MADEIRA.

AT MADEIRA.

Date.

Wind.

Tkhperature.

Seo.

A.r.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Nov.

N.W. to S. 7 2

23S.

S.E. 6 1

S.E. 1-2

N.W. toS.W. 1-4

S.W. 7-9

S.W. 10-5

W. toS.E. 7-1

Nov. 22nd. — No communication with the shore on account of the
surf and swell still running. In the afternoon we get up steam in
two boilers in case it be necessary to put to sea. Sunday, the next
day, was damp and uncomfortable, as we pitched and rolled to the
swell, but we had the usual services. On Monday, as there was not
much wind, some of the oiBcers went oflF to the shore in the afternoon.
Amongst them was the captain and his nephew. These two
came off again from the Loo Rock with much difficulty, both in
getting the boat off from the shore on account of the surf, and in
getting alongside on account of the high sea, which was running in
from the south. The paymaster and the other officers were left
behind on shore. We had steam up ready for starting all night,
and the next morning lit fires under two more boilers and pointed
yards to the wind. There was a brig which had dragged her anchors
in the roads much closer in to the shore than we were. Her skipper,
who was on the Loo Rock, well out of it, was signalling instructions
to his men, as to what they should do in the event of her being
stranded. Tlieir signals in reply seemed naturally more excited
than his ; but he told them to try and beach her, if possible, at
the point to which they found the crowd running, and that in the
event of her being broken up they would be well cared for. As
the swell was still increasing, we weighed anchor at 5 p.m., and
steamed away to the eastward, passing San Lorenzo Light at 8 p.m.,
and so getting round under the lee of the north side of the island.
Here we lay off and on all night ; and our example was followed by
a small Portuguese mail boat with one of their admirals on board.
It was a bright moonlight night, and though the wind was now

D 2

36 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1879.

freshening from the south-west up to nine or ten, yet we lay-to
here quietly and with comfort.

Nov, 26th. — Dropped a target overboard and pitched away shot
and shell at it, as the water was tolerably smooth, though there
was much wind with rain-squalls. At night the weather cleared
a bit, but we still stood off and on. The clear-cut coast-line,
peaked and jagged, sheltered us from the gale which was
careering overhead, as was shown by the torn and fleecy clouds
scudding high aloft.

Nov. 27th, — The wind has fallen a bit, shifting more to the west.
So we leave the north side of the island, passing round San Lorenzo
about 8 A.M., and find the swell has gone down very much on
the southeni side. So steamed close in to observe the village, and
some sanguine persons imagined they could see the officers left
behind in Funchal walking over the hill to rejoin the ship. But
on arrival at our old anchorage off the Loo Rock at 11.16 A.M., we
found that they had spent a pleasant time at Myles's Hotel, instead
of wandering over the island. Fitful evening, but quiet on the
whole. The next day broke fine, and as it was the last chance
any of us would have of going ashore, some of us went in the
afternoon, and had a run.

We received on board the new gymnastic things, parallel bars,
vaulting horse, etc., which have come out to us from England ; and
the captain received at the same time his new electric-light
apparatus, which was intended to be worked by hand by means
of cranks and wheels. When he ordered it, he imagined it would
be very useful for carrying to the top of a mountain, or down into
a cave, for illuminating purposes ; but was much disappointed at
finding that when put together on the upper deck it occupied
the whole space under the poop, and would require at lewt a dozen
hands to lift it at all.

Nov. 29th. — Wrote up our mails for England and sent them to
the care of the consul; and at 2 P.ir. weighed and cast to port under
topsails, then rove screw purchase and up screw. There was a nice
little breeze from the north-west, which took us along over five
knots, so that the island of Madeira was soon below the horizon. Our
course was south-half- west, and the wind being aft we set starboard
stunsails.

Dec. 1st, — The Princess of Wales's birthday. The wind has been
dying away, and we have scarcely been making one knot an hour
on an average during the whole of yesterday, and the whole of to-

1879.

MADEIRA TO TENERIFFE.

day. It has gone round from the north-west to east, and then to
south, and is drawing round now to the south-west, which is a dead
head wind for us to make Teneriffe under sail. At 2.15 P.M. on
sighting the Peak snow-covered, and without a cloud upon it, we
tacked and stood off from the land. Tacked again at 8.20 P.M.
and again at 11.30 p.m.

MADEIRA TO TENERIFFE.

DATS.

Fbox Previous Noon.

At Noon.

Tkhperatunx.

Distance.

Sea.

Air.

Course.

Wind.

Lat.

Long.

Sail, jstcam.

Noon-

0 P.M.

Noon

ep.ie.

Nov.

...

3. to W. 1-8

6'5

SOS.

S. 11 E.

98 ! ...

N.W. to

81-6

16-85

Dec.

N.E. 8-1

55 ...

N. to S.W.

80-11

16-36

S. 40 E.

65 1 ...

S.W. 4-5

29-20

15-47

...

73 j 19

S.W. 6 1

286 1 19

Total dUtanct

i... 305- mile&

Dec. 2nd. — All day the Peak has been in sight, still clear of
cloud and promising well for our hoped-for ascent. There is a very

38 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1879.

decent breeze to-day, only unfortunately it is foul. We go through
the water over six knots, and throw a tack every watch, trying
to beat up to our anchorage, but at noon we are still forty-niue
miles from Santa Cruz.

To-day arid yesterday we have been much interested in reading the
Hakluyt Society's Edition of the Congricest of the Canaines in 1402.
A Norman baron, Bethencourt, and a knight, Gadifer, smitten with
the spirit of adventure, set out together from La Rochelle on May-
day 1402, for a half crusading, half free-booting expedition to these
" Islands of the Blest," which up to that time were still, for Europe,
on the borderland of romance. They came hither with " a company
of fifty-three people," and found the natives (as nearly all natives
seem ever to be when first they come in contact with Europeans)
very friendly. " They lived in caverns in the hills, and were very
strong in body and mind ; they painted themselves beautifully in
red, green and yellow." " They sang very sweetly, and danced almost
as well as Frenchmen ; they were gay and merry, and much more
civilised than the Spaniards. They refused wine and only drank
water. They showed remarkable faithfulness and honesty, for if
any one of them received anything good to eat, before tasting it,
he divided it into portions which he shared with the rest." They
kindled fire by rubbing one stick against another, they used iron
for fish hooks, but shaved themselves with stone. "Each tribe
had two kings, one dead and one living ; for they kept the dead one
till his successor died and took his place." The inhabitants of the
five islands spoke diflferent languages and could not understand
each other. The islands seemed to have been peopled by two
distinct races, the Berbers and Arabs. Bethencourt called them
" heathen Saracens." They worshipped on the tops of the mountains
in stone circles, with oflFerings of butter and libations of goat's
milk. Bethencourt went back to Spain, eight days' sail to Seville,
to fetch more Christians to this " earthly paradise ; " and did
homage for the lordship of the islands, not to his own French king,
but to the king of Castile, as the nearest Christian sovereign, who,
however, was rather surprised to see him, for he had never heard
of them before. The baron having got all he wanted from the
king in money and help, returns to the Canaries, but finds things
have not been going on over well during his absence. There have
been quarrellings and other ill deeds amongst some of his mixed
company of adventurers. His faithful knight, Gadifer, had indeed
conquered and baptised many natives, " in spite of the contempt

1879. NORMANS IN CANARIES. 39

into which the Christian faith had fallen by the treachery of its
professors : the natives imagined that our faith and law could not
be so good as we represented, since we betrayed one another and
were not consistent in our actions." The baron and the knight,
the original heads of the expedition, fell out together, and went
home in separate ships to argue their cause before the King of
Spain. Gadifer retires to his old home in France. Bethencourt
remains sole king of the Canaries : he pays a visit to his wife in
Normandy — "never had monsieur rejoiced so much at meeting
madame," — for whom he had brought mauy curiosities as presents
from these distant countries. He wished, however, to return as
soon as possible, and take as many people as he could from
Normandy. **I wish to take with me people of all the diflferent
trades that can be mentioned or thought of; and to those who
come I will give sufficient land to till, if they will only undertake
the trouble.. There are many mechanics in this country who have
not a foot of ground of their own, and who live very hardly : now
if they will come with me yonder, I promise them that I will do
the best for them that I can; better than for any others that may
come in future, much better even than for the natives who have
embraced Christianity." He took eight score of those who
volunteered from the neighbourhood of his Norman home, and set
sail again on the 9th of May 1403, with a far fairer company than
the adventurers who first went with him three years before. These
had killed many natives and " reduced the others to such extremity
they knew no longer what to do, but came from day to day to
throw themselves on their mercy, so that hardly any now remained
alive who were not baptised, especially of those who might have
given trouble and been too much for them." In 1406 the baron
started once more, and travelled to Rome with letters from the
King of Spain, to ask the Pope to give him a bishop for his two
hundred baptised natives. Before leaving, he held an assembly of
the chief men of the islands, and bade them "as near as you
possibly can to observe the customs of France and Normandy in
the administration of justice and all other points ; above all things
let there be no envy or rivalry, but keep at peace among yourselves,
and then all will be well." He appoints his nephew as lieutenant-
governor of the islands, and apparently tired with his four years'
efforts, settled himself down henceforth to enjoy his old age at ease
in his native land. Having, however, a young wife, he is consumed
with jealousy, quite unreasonably. A few years after her death he

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE,

1879.

ended his stormy life in 1422, just as he was preparing once more,
after sixteen years' absence, to go and see his island kingdom again.
He left the Canaries by will to his brother. His nephew had been
displaced from his lieutenant-governorship for tyranny in 1414, and
after ceding the islands to the governor sent by the King of Spain
to replace him, fled and secretly sold the sovereignty (which was not
his) to the Portuguese Prince Henry, the navigator, thus hoping to
embroil the two nations. The Portuguese claimed the Canaries
under a former grant from the Pope, made in 1334, and it was not
till 1497 that Spain, under Ferdinand and Isabella, acquired the
undisturbed ownership of these islands, which she has held ever
since, but which were gained for her by the valour and energy of a
French baron in one of the very earliest attempts of his nation at
conquest and colonisation. The story of his eflforts reads in some
respects like a page of to-day's rather than of mediaeval history.

Dec, Srd. — At 6.30 A.M. rove screw purchase and down screw, as it
is now a dead calm; at 7.30 A.M. commenced steaming, having
shortened and furled sails. Exchanged numbers with H.MS.
Atalanta, Captain F. Stirling, which is just leaving Santa Cruz
under sail for the West Indies. She unfortunately lost two hands
in the gale, which we rode out under the lee of Madeira, but which
caught her midway between that island and this. At 11 A.M.
stopped steaming, and came-to in twenty-five fathoms oflF Santa
Cruz ; once again saluted the red and yellow flag of Spain with
twenty-one guns.

AT TENERIFFE.

Temperaiurr.

Date.

Wind.

Sea.

Air.

Noun. 1 0 P.M.

Noon.

Cp.m

Dec.
4
5

Variable 1
Variable. 1-2

69 ; 69
69 69

73
72

70
70

It is very warm here, thermometer in cabin under poop showing
nearly 80°, fifteen degrees warmer than when we left Madeira.
In the roads is lying the French two-decker {La Tage) filled
with convicts on their way to Cayenne ; she sailed soon after we
anchored. The Spanish commandant came off, and was saluted
on leaving with seventeen guns ; and after him the captain of the
port in a dingey and a splendid uniform, who was saluted with

1879. SANTA CRUZ. 41

nine guns ; then came Mr. Edwards the British vice-consul and
Mr. Hamilton. With them we landed after lunch, and went to
the museum, which is arranged in what was once an old convent.
There there are some very curious Guanche skulls, skeletons and
mummies, some of which the custodian said he should be very
happy to exchange with other museums for skulls and remains of
other early races. They are found chiefly deposited in tufa caverns
(sometimes beautifully painted) in the hills in TeneritFe and Palma ;
in the Great Canary they are inclosed in mounds of a conical or
pyramidal shape. '*The natives of Teneriffe called themselves
Guanchinet, which the Spaniards corrupted into Guanche. Guan
meant person, and Chinet was the same as Tenerifife ; so the two
words combined meant ' men of Teneriffe ; ' of all the islanders
they held out longest against their conquerors, and were not
subdued till 1496." Outside the museum, on the Plaza, is the
fountain with the statues of the four Guanche kings who were
converted to Christianity by the first Spanish settlers in 1492.

We then went to the cathedral to see the two English flags
which Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson lost here on July 24th, 1797 ;
they are both Union Jacks without St. Andrew's Cross, and they
are both very much larger than the ordinary flags used nowadays.
They are kept rolled round their staffs in two long glazed wooden
cases arranged on each side of an altar in a chapel on the north
side of the nave. To-day they were taken down and placed on a
large table in the vestry and unrolled for us to handle and examine
conveniently. Four ships of the line, three frigates and the Fox
cutter, formed his squadron ; they were anchored two miles north
of the town. The boats pulled in for a night attack on the mole,
led by Nelson in that of his own ship the Th&stv^. The night was
exceedingly dark, and most of the boats missed the mole and went
ashore in the surf. The mole was carried by five boats, but Nelson
lost his right arm by a gunshot wound just as he was landing ; his
life was saved by his lieutenant, Nisbet, who was also his stepson.
Those of the British who had landed — in all about 300 men —
pushed on to the great square but found the Spaniards in too strong
force for them to take the town. The Spanish governor courteously
found them boats off to the ships, and treated our wounded very
well. Admiral Nelson took charge of his despatches to the Spanish
Government, and thus actually became the first messenger to Spain
of his own defeat. He lost in all — killed, wounded, and drowned —
250 men in this affair. We then mounted to the top of the tower

42 CttUlSE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1879.

from whence there is naturally the best view over the town,
which contains 11,000 inhabitants. The slopes of the hills on this
eastern side of the island are almost completely bare of all
trees and verdure, excepting that there are whole fields of dwarf
cactus bushes, the leaves of which are carefully covered over with
little white caps of calico and thus present at first sight a very
queer appearance. These bags are thus secured to keep in the little
cochineal insect, which, after being fattened on the leaf, is in due
time harvested and pounded up for dye. It is a curious thing
that as long ago as the time of the Emperor Augustus the
Canaries were called The Purple Islands, on account of the dye
produced from the orchil, a lichen still found here and in the
Cape de Verde islands. The Latin explorers reported one island
was named Ganarie **by reason of the large dogs, or African
greyhounds, found thereon." Eanarr, however, is still the name
of a tribe in Barbary, with which probably the Guanches were
connected.

Dec, 4tth, — We landed — ^a party of four ward-room oflScers and
nine from the gun-room, — walked up along the newly-constructed
pier to the consul's, and met there three carriages that had been
hired for the trip, and Mr. Renshaw with his own barouche. Into
these we settled ourselves, putting what little gear we had into the
smaller of the three. We then drove up the hill to Laguna, a
town halfway across this northern neck of the island, which is
about sixteen miles in width. The whole of the southern and
larger part of the island of Teneriffe is covered by the base of
the Peak, thirty-six miles across at its widest part, one of the largest
volcanic cones known. The ascent to Laguna was very steep and
hot. The road, though well constructed, was to-day uncommonly
dusty, and several of us were only too glad to shorten its many
windings on foot. Arrived at Laguna, over two hours from
Santa Cruz, we went into Mr. B. Renshaw's house, which is
arranged, like most of the large old-fashioned mansions in the
broad streets of this deserted town, in cool Spanish fashion round
an open quadrangle with a garden in the centre ; here he had
kindly provided luncheon for us, after enjoying which we drove
on over fertile plains covered with corn, and here and there
interspersed with huge palms and other trees, to Orotava, twenty-
two miles from Santa Cruz, where we arrived at 3 P.M. The whole
of this western side of the island, with its rich greenery and
gradual instead of precipitous slopes, no longer barren but covered

J 879. OROTAVA. 43

with rich volcanic soil, is a roost striking contrast to the eastern

side with its yellow and dusty nakedness. At Orotava Mr. Beid,

the vice-consul, met us and walked with us down to the Botanical

Gardens, and then back to the town to the Dragon tree {Dracoena

draco), of whioh there are now only a large heap of fragments.

It used to be fifty feet round the base, and Humboldt held it to

be 10,000 years old. One branch of this tree, blown oflF in a storm

in 1867, is at Kew. In another garden there is a very queer

chestnut tree, rooted and flourishing in a fork formed by the

branches of an older tree. Both these gardens belong to Irish

gentlemen who have become Spanish marquises : they were both

very cordial in receiving us. It was now getting dusk, but we

looked into one of the churches which was lit up for evening

service, and to which many of the peasants were trooping in;

they are the descendauts of Spanish and Norman-French settlers,

with some Guanche blood intermixed. Their dress is very simple ;

it consists of a thin white undershirt, and over their shoulders

a white blanket : when they are working in the fields in the

heat of the day, the blanket is thrown on one side, and only

resumed in the chill of the evening. The dress on the whole

is a striking one, and seems just what is wanted for the sudden

changes of heat and cold of the climate. It may be the exact

counterpart of the " tunic " and " cloak " worn by the Greeks

when they first penetrated, ages ago, to these ''Islands of the

Blest.'' The only drawback is that the blanket is apt to become

very dirty from being used night and day. We dined at the hotel,

not at all a bad dinner, and afterwards, as there was a piano in the

sitting-room and bare boards, an impromptu dance was arranged

by the youngsters, who did as best they might without lady partners.

In the midst of this, an eccentric gentleman appeared upon

the scene, who introduced himself as having known the Prince of

Wales when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge. He told us

that he had brought the Alcade of the town, who wished to pay

his respects to the party, and then went out to fetch him in from

the next room. Returning with him and a couple of town

councillors (neither of the three understood a word of English but

were dignified and well mannered), he proceeded to "introduce

them" to us, but the introductory and rambling speech was all

about himself and his own early days. So after shaking hands

with the Alcade and thanking him for his goodwill and attention,

we dismissed the assembly and shortly afterwards retired to rest ;

44 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1879.

some of the party slept well and comfortably, but others were
terribly flea-bitten.

Dec. Sth. — All up at 2 A.M., and started at 3 A.M. for the Cafiadas
on ponies. These made their appearance by twos and threes, and
were variously caparisoned. Mr. Reid joined us and we pro-
ceeded, a long cavalcade of sixteen, out of the town, and up through
the lanes and fields to the hillside above. The stars are all shining
clear overhead, and there is not a cloud in the sky ; the moon is
setting just over where the peak should be, though at present from
where we are it is shut out from view. The guides who run beside
the ponies seem to know the path though it is still dark ; we cross
the pebbly beds of two or three streams, and by and by the dawn
begins to break. We halted for a few minutes at the foot of one of
the stone gullies, and admired the rosy light on the snow of the
Peak, which now stood out perfectly clear on our right. The sun
itself was for more than an hour hidden from our view by the
precipitous hills on our left. These are perfectly bare of every
scrap of verdure, and are composed of brown pumice stone and
lava, and are full of gullies and ravines. We longed to get to the
top of this ridge in order to look over and see the sun rising from
the sea on the eastern side, but the path wound away to the right
and rendered this impossible. In some places it is very rough and
so steep that we have to dismount, but at last we arrive on the
plain of the Canadas, a circle twelve miles in diameter, the largest
crater known, on the south side of which the cone of the Peak
rises 500 feet higher. Here it is bitterly cold and there is no
shelter ; we gather some of the dry retem shrubs and make a fire
and prepare breakfast, as it is now between eight and nine o'clock.
We were all uncommonly hungry, and the morning «dr at over 7,000
feet above the sea on the Canadas gave a still keener edge to our
appetite ; some tinned sausages warmed over the fire were very
popular. After climbing to the top of two or three cairns further
on in the plain, whence we can look down on the eastern slopes and
distinguish the Great Canary and Fuerte-ventura on the dark blue
horizon, we turned, and rode away to the westward under the
base of the cone to Bealjo, from whence we see the Island of
Palma on the north-west, and from here made our descent.
From this point we get one of the finest views we have ever
seen. These be the gardens of the *' Hesperides " as known to the
Carthaginian colony at Cadiz ; they stretch away, an amphitheatre
facing to the west, bounded at the southern end by Icod, and at

1879. TENERIFFE. 45

the northern by Matanza ; between which two there is a long slope
of everlasting fertility and loveliness, just like the slope of Etna,
only here, besides the maize and rich green crops, we have the
palms and bananas and other semi-tropic foliage. Yonder is the
highest peak on which Greek eyes ever rested — the Atlantean
pillar of heaven. Hither came the wanderers Perseus and Herakles
in search of the golden fruit, guarded by the dragon, the remains
of whose dragon tree we saw yesterday in Orotava. The arms of
TenerifiFe still show, St. Michael standing on the summit of the
Peak which vomits flames, as he conquers the dragon. The
Atlantides were probably the personification of the smaller islands
that cluster round Teneriffe, and with it are the sole remains of the
continent of Atlantis sunk long since beneath the Atlantic waves.

It is now very warm, byt very beautiful, and we enjoy some
fresh oranges, the golden apples of the Hesperides (unless those
last were pineapples), which we get fresh picked from a small
cottage garden by the roadside. We were shown some very young
dragon trees that were planted as slips at the time of the Spanish
conquest 400 years ago ; they are scarcely yet a foot in circumference,
so extraordinarily slow is their growth. We arrive at the hotel in
Orotava by 2 P.M., having been just twelve hours out, and on tho
move the whole time, with the exception of half an hour's halt
for breakfast. We lunched at once, and made a start in the car*
riages at 3 P.M. We had our last look at Orotava from Matanza,
and it was dark by the time we reached Laguna (eighteen
miles). We arrived at Santa Cruz, the return journey being all
.down hill, and got off to the ship by 8 P.M. After dinner most of
the party again went ashore, to a ball given at the Consulate by
Mr. Edwards to the captain and oflScers of the Bacchante, which
was the event of the evening at Santa Cruz, all the ladies of which
honoured it with their presence. A Spanish polka- like dance was
very popular. Santa Cruz is only four days by steam from Cadiz.

Dec, 6th. — Finished mails for England and sent them ashore with
Mr. Edwards, who came off to lunch together with Mr. B. Renshaw,
the Americfim gentleman, who kindly lent us his carriage yesterday
to go across the island. At 3 P.M. we got under way, under steam,
as it was perfectly calm, and proceeded round the south end of
the island and so bade good-bye to Teneriffe and the Old World,
and started on the track of Columbus for the New, following almost
in his very footsteps, for it was from Gomera, one of the Canaries,
that he set sail on his first voyage in 1492 across the Atlantic and

46 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1879.

arrived at the West Indies, and it was from Gomera he started
again in the following year, and again in 1498 and in 1503 ; here too
Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico, anchored in 1504. We steamed
between this island and Ferro, where " there are some trees
which are always dripping with a most clear delicious water,
which falls into a pool near the trees, formed by the continual
dropping. It is the most excellent for drinking that can be found
anywhere. The quality of this water is such that, if any one had
eaten till he could eat no more, and were to drink of this water,
in one hour the food would be entirely digested, and the man would
have as great an appetite as he had before having eaten."

At 5 P.M. made plain sail on the port tack to a nice little breeze
from the south-east, which carried us along all that night between
seven and eight knots under steam and sail.

Dec, 7th. — Holy. Communion, usual services, Bible classes, etc.
Steaming all day oflF and oh, stopping the engines for an hour or so
at a time. By noon we had made 137 miles.

Dec, Sth, — Light airs from the south-west. At 9.30 A.M. short-
ened and furled sails and pointed yards to the wind, for what little
there is, is dead ahead, ^he midshipman's half-yearly examination
began. In the afternoon we were reading the Life of Columbvs,
When the sun went down there were a number of dark clouds about,
but the whole sky was one mass of bright colours one of which
was a peculiar greenish blue. There were apparently two sun-
sets, one after the other in succession ; the colours of the first died
out and then brightened up again. More than once after watching
the sunsets and sunrises at sea did we turn up and re-read
Mr. Kingsley's words : —

" The evening skies are fit weeds for widowed Eos weeping over
the dying sun ; thin, formless, rent — in carelessness, not in rage ;
and of all the hues of early autumn leaves, purple and brown, with
green and primrose lakes of air between ; but all hues weakened,
mingled, chastened into loveliness, tenderness, regretfulness, through
which still shines, in endless vistas of clear western light, the hope
of the returning day. More and more faint the pageant fades
below towards the white haze of the horizon, where, in sharpest
contrast, leaps and welters against it the black jagged sea ; and
richer and richer it glows upwards till it cuts the azure over-
heard; .until, only too soon

* The sun*s rim dips, the stars rush out,
At one stride comes the dark ; '

1879.

TENEBIFFE TO BARDADOS.
TENERIFFE TO BARBADOS.

.eo* . bo" , 4o* I ao* 1 20*

:h^

SO
80*
lO'

10*

^^/j0V/.'J-

^^ 1 I,

VM n 23

a 21 20
DEC.1879

eo- ' BO* ' 40" • , 80* . ' ao'

(The second course traced is that of H.M.S. Atalanta, the lost taken from her log.
It is here given as showing how she met th^ same peculiar winds on her
passage that the BaocharUe did).

Dat«.

Fbom Pbevious Noon.

At Noon.

Temperature.

CJOURSE.

Distance.

WiMD.

Lat

Long.

Bea.

Air.

Bail.

Stettin.

Noon.

6F.M.

Noon.

«P.M.

Dec.

...

Calm.

...

7"l

7S.

S.87W.

117

S E. 2-5

27-0

18-19

S. 66W.

128

S.W. 4-2

26-7

20-38

S. 65W.

..-

134

W.S.W. 1

24-48

22-39

S.52W.

141

S.W. and
N.W. 21

23-21

24-41

S.60W.

157

N.W. 1

22-2

27-9

S. 62 W.

...

145

E. to S.W. 1

20-54

29-26

S.62W.

...

134

S.W. to N.W.

1
S.&N.W.1-8

19-52

31-31

14S.

S.64W.

130

18-54

83 -34

S. 40 W.

N.W. 3-5

17-35

84-37

S. 42 W.

100

N.W. 6'6

16-14

35-52

S. 44 W.

117

...

N.W. 5

14-50

37-16

S. 40 W.

N.W. 4-1

13-58

38-2

S. 66 W.

N.W. 1-2

13-27

39-11

S. 84 W.

142

N.E. 2-3

13-11

41-42

21S.

S. 86 W.

...

164

N.E. 4

131

44-30

171

N.E. 4-5

13-1

47-49

N. 89W.

181

N.E. 8-4

13-2

50-65

N. 89-40
W.

...

266

N.E. 4-6

13-3

55-20

219
2321

N.E.

...

Total distanc

«... 27

21 mil

cs.

48 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1879.

to be succeeded, after the long balmy night, by a sunrise which
repeats the colours of the sunset, but this time gaudy, dazzling,
triumphant, as befits the season of faith and hope. Such imagery,
it may be said, is hackneyed now, and trite even to impertinence.
It might be so at home ; but here, in presence of the magnificent
pageant of tropic sunlight, it is natural, almost inevitable ; and the
old myth of the daily birth and death of Helios, and the bridal joys
and widowed tears of Eos, re-invents itself in the human mind, as
soon as it asserts its power — it may be its sacred right — to
translate nature into the language of the feelings. And meanwhile,
may we not ask — have we not a right, founded on that common-
sense of the heart which often is the deepest reason, to ask — * If
we, gross and purblind mortals, can perceive and sympathise with
so much beauty in the universe, then how much must not He
perceive, with how much must not He sympathise, for whose
pleasure all things are, and were created? Who that believes
(and rightly) the sense of beauty to be among the noblest faculties
of man, will deny that faculty to God, who conceived man and
all besides V " (At Last, pp. 11, 12).

Dec. 9th. — We continue under steam 5*8 knots, hoping for the
north-east trade-wind, but in vain. In the afternoon a swell came
up long and heavy from the north-west, and happening by its
periods just to suit the ship, rolls us nine to the minute all night
through. Several sail in sight, one of them supposed to be the
Atalanta.

Dec, 10th. — Bright and sunny, but, alas ! no wind ; examination
still going on ; entered the tropic of Cancer at 10 A.M. In the
afternoon exchanged colours with a German ship bound from
Antwerp to the Floridas. At sunset two sail in sight; got into
white jackets for dinner for the first time. The next day at noon
we were just under two thousand miles from Barbadoes. There
are nearly a dozen sail in sight, they are evidently becalmed and
waiting for the " trade " which never comes. In the evening a little
breeze for two or three hours comes up from the south-east and we
are able to set fore and aft sails. To-day began to read the Earthly
Paradise, and suppose we are on the track of those Northmen ;
certainly *' the steely plain of sea " looks this evening as if one
could get out and walk upon it, '' so unlike any liquid as seen near
shore or inland is this leaping heavy plain, reminding one by
its innumerable conchoidal curves not of water, not even of ice,
but rather of obsidian."

1879. TENERIFFE TO BARBADOS. 49

Dec. 12,th, — In the early morning much lightning away to the
north-east, what little air there is being from the south-west.
Regular doldrum weather, the very flying-fish seem lazy and go
scuttling along only just above the surface of the water like little
birds. We are now two hundred miles within the northern limit of
the north-east " trades " in winter, but not a breath of one have we
yet felt. Had a turn at gymnastics in the afternoon ; and at 5 P.M.
observed an American full-rigged ship on the starboard beam with
a signal flying, so altered course and steamed towards her. At
first her signal was taken in as " no doctor available," and our three
medical officers were gently excited on the poop, wondering which
of them would get a job, but on coming nearer the signal proved
to be "exchange longitudes." We exchanged longitudes and
returned to our course. At noon to-day we were just 1,800 miles
from Barbados. After dinner the captain exhibited his electrics
in the after-cabin ; some pretty jets and twirls of pink and green
light inside glass tubes.

The next day was very muggy, and we were rolling about, as the
swell and what little wind there was were coming up from opposite
quarters. We, however, still keep pounding along 5*8 knots,
passing, as usual, eight or ten sail. The whole of this part of the
sea is evidently now a regular high road, and very difierent from
when Columbus crossed it. Sunday (the 14th) was just the
same ; if anything, a trifle more motion on the ship, but having
a grass hammock rigged up, we were able to turn in and disregard
it. At 2 P.M. we made plain sail on the starboard tack, and at
4.30 P.M. stopped steaming, which, however, we had to commence
again an hour afterwards.

Dec, \hth. — In the forenoon midshipmen's examination still
going on, and in the afternoon we go to rifle drill and gymnastics.
The wind is now dead ahead, and a little stronger, so that we are
only niaking four knots against it, and we begin to wonder whether
our coals will hold out, should we have to steam against a strong
head wind the remainder of the distance to the West Indies,
1,470 miles. Finished reading Westward Ho ! for the second time.
Dec. 16<A. — The wind having at last got a touch of north in it
(north-west), at 10 A.M. stopped the engines, made plain sail, and at
11 A.M. hove to, and got up the screw; the breeze being pretty
steady took us along for the rest of the day between four and five
knots.

Dec. I7th. — The breeze has freshened, though it shows no signs
VOL. I. E

50 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1879.

of drawing round to the north-east ; still it is very pleasant with
the thermometer at 76° sailing along between five and six knots,
after all the thumping we have had with the screw. Shoals of
flying-fish to-day. Alas, towards evening the wind all died away,
and there was a flat calm, and we were flumping about on the swell,
with the ship's head all round the compass. This continued all
night until noon the next day, when we had only made sixty-
nine miles ; it lasted also the whole of that afternoon, and until
the noon of Friday, the 19th, when we rove screw purchase, got
the screw down, and commenced steaming at 2.30 p.m. We had
scarcely done so when the north-east trade at last began steadily
to blow, and we set starboard stunsails, and go gallantly along
under steam and sail six and seven knots, being now just over
1,000 miles distant from Barbados. Our average daily run for
the next three days to the 23rd was 170 miles, on the afternoon
of which day lit fires under a third boiler, and increased to forty
revolutions, which, with the "trade** blowing a steady six, carried
us along ten knots all that night and the whole of Wednesday,
the 24th, on which day we made a run of 256 miles, which
brought us to a distance of 217 miles from Barbados.

Christmas Day. — Up on deck at 4 A.M., and had first sight of the
Southern Cross ; it was low down in the horizon, and appeared more
to resemble a lily bent to the left than a cross. At 8.15 A.M. sighted
Barbados : a long, low, grey-looking shore, with a tall lighthouse
on the southern end towards us. The island is in the shape of a
leg of mutton, twenty-one miles long, and fourteen broad, tapering
down to three, its circumference about fifty-five ; its area is about
the same as that of the Isle of Wight. At 9 A.M. shortened and
furled sails, and then had a short Christmas Day service on the
main deck, and at 11.15 A.M. stopped the engines, and came to in
twenty fathoms in Carlisle Bay, oflf Bridgetown. H.M.S. Tourmaline,
Captain R. P. Dennistoun, is lying here, further in towards the
shore, glistening, clean, fresh-painted, and with her sun awnings
spread fore and aft, looking cool and enviable from our hot decks,
which at present are very dirty, with traces of steaming. Further
away, a mile or so to the north, lie all the merchant shipping, a
goodly array of coasters and other steamers, off Bridgetown.
Swarms of shore-boats, with grinning, laughing, negro washer-
women, at once surrounded us. Jane Ann Smith was the only
one (she stands over six feet) that sat in solemn dignity in the
stern sheets of her boat, the ^^Wttwi donna of the occasion, having

1879. AT BARBADOS. 51

already washed for Prince Alfred on more than one occasion, and
fully intending to do so for other princes yet. The other negresses
gesticulated, each from her own boat, and saluted the officers
on the poop with many endearing terms, claiming also former
acquaintance with the elder and sedate, and of all things in the
world flourishing cotton Manchester-made pocket-handkerchiefs
flag fashion, with likenesses of us both woven in colours on them,
and one or two triumphantly produced framed photographs of us
taken at Dartmouth, which they waved about, bobbing and kissing
their hands, all one huge grin of delight. Are these gaily- decked
ebony forms merely thus showing the simple silliness of good-
natured animals, or the joy of the fluttering bird about to swoop
upon what it regards as its easy prey ? or is it the fawning of a
lower race before what even yet it has not ceased to feel as its
superior ? or a mixture of all three ? Be it as it may, we can't help
laughing at and with them the first time we set eyes on such a
laughter-compelling exhibition. As soon as the ship is moored
they come on board with their certificates of former performances,
and seem for the first hour after anchoring to be swarming all over
the half deck.

In the afternoon called on the Governor, Major G. Strahan, R.A.
He was aide-de-camp to Sir Henry Storks when the Prince of
Wales was in Corfu. Three years ago he happened to dine at
Abergeldie, the night of the day that Eddy first went out deer-
stalking, and remembered the curie afterwards under the porch.
We also called on General Gamble, C.B., commanding the forces, at
Queen's House, where we went round the well- arranged garden, in
which are all sorts of curious shrubs and plants, and in a great tank
in a shady dell three old turtles of great antiquity, one of whom
recognises his keeper, and performs tricks for his food. All the
officers of the ship had their Christmas dinner under the poop,
when some of the more elderly officers of the civil branch astonished
their juniors by the sentimental and old-fashioned bravura ditties
with which they favoured the company.

Dec, 26^A. — Began coaling ship from lighters, which however
came oflF but slowly from the shore ; one carrying ten tons of coal
swamped and sank alongside. We landed in the afternoon at the
Carenage and went up to Government House and had a game of
lawn-tennis with other midshipmen, and also at billiards in the cool
room detached from the house and opening on all sides into the
garden. The Governor showed us all over this and the grass walks

E 2

TrZ

ORUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE,

1879.

under the palms ; we saw among other things the comimon accom-
paniment of a West Indian kitchen door, the magic Fapaw tree,
whose leaves rubbed on the toughest meat make it tender on the
spot, and whose fruit makes the best of sauce or pickle to be
eaten therewith ; the stems are some fifteen feet high, with a flat
crown of mallow-like leaves. We afterwards dined with him
quietly ; no one was there except the colonial secretary (Honourable
W. F. Hely-Hutchinson), the attorney-general (Mr. Fleming), and
Mr. Hull, the private secretary. Driving down to the landing-place
after dinner, through the warm still air of the tropic night, we
heard for the first time the perpetual whistling of the frogs, which
after dark kept up a regular chorus from every garden and field all
over the place.

AT BARBADOS

Temperatcbb.

Date.

Wind.

Sea.

Air.

Noi>n.

.'."'ll

Noon.

6 p.m.

Dec.

N.E. 7-4

X.E. 3 1

28S.

N.E. 3 1

N.E. 3-4

N.E. 1

Calm

Jan.

N.E. 1-2

N.E. 2-6

S.E. 1-4

4S.

N.E. 1-3

Dec. 27th, — Still coaling, but finished at 2.30 P.M., having received
356 tons, and then began at last to wash down and get the ship a
little bit tidy. At 4 p.m. we landed and went up to Queen's
House for a ride with the General, which was very jolly in the cool
of the evening. We rode all along the beach to the lighthouse
point ; the water close under the shore was of clear emerald green
with a white sandy bottom, and the land crabs were scuttling about
and still crawling there just as they did when Amyas Leigh walked
and sat upon this same beach in 1583, what time he "came to
Barbados and found no man therein " ( Wesivjard Ho I chap. xvii.).
And the "bearded" fig trees too, large spreading trees with
bold evergreen foliage, were still there, with their fibrous twisted

1879. BARBADOS. 53

roots hanging from the branches like beards; from which the
island got its name from the Portuguese, who saw them first in
1618. The first recorded visit of Englishmen was in 1605, when
the crew of the Olive Blossom landed, put up a cross and cut
thereon, *' James, King of England, and of this Island." From that
day to this it has never ceased to belong to Great Britain, and is
almost the only one of the West Indian islands that has never
changed hands. It lies most to windward of the trades (i.e. up to
north-east) of any of the Antilles, being seventy-eight miles east
of St. Vincent. It remained thickly wooded and uninhabited till
1624 ; four years later the first English colonists landed ; but they
knew no use for the sugai'-cane, till in 1640 a Dutchman from
Brazil taught them the secret of boiling the juice. In a few years
their prosperity was prodigious. The whole of the western coasts
of the island were soon covered with plantations, and in twenty
years 50,000 English settled there. The civil wars in England
increased the number of the planters, who were chiefly men of
wealth. The growth of Barbados went on fast from 1640 to 1650.
In 1645 many Royalist refugees emigrated hither, and Charles II.
was proclaimed king as soon as the news of Charles I.'s execution
came out. They called the island " Little England," and in the
planters of Barbados we certainly find the earliest type of the
true English colonist. The representatives of these families that
have been located in the island for over 200 years are there still,
and as much attached to the soil as the representatives of county
families at home, and in many cases they are the descendants,
through junior branches, of some of the best families in England,
and their estates are still called after the ancestral domain.

Barbados was, however, reduced to submission by the great Pro-
tector, who had a strong colonial policy ; he forced the island to give
up free trade with the Dutch and Portuguese, and by his Act of
Navigation to trade with none but the mother country. Cromwell
also did a great deal for the West Indies by sending many of his
Irish and Scotch pidsoners out as slaves. Seven thousand Scotch,
for example, were sold to the West Indian planters after the battle
of Worcester (the same thing was done in 1716 after the rebellion
of the Pretender). In 1657 Barbados was the most populous,
rich, and industrious spot on the earth. Fourteen thousand pounds
was reckoned then the smallest capital with which a planter could
settle upon an estate of 500 acres ; but this sum easily yielded 50
per cent, every year. The West Indian plantations were to England

54 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1879.

ia the time of Chaxles II., and until after the Revolution, very
much what the cotton and iron manufactures are in our own times.
It was calculated that 250,000 English were engaged in the
plantation trade, and as every one of these, including the sailors
employed on the trade thither, furnished employment for four pairs
of hands at home, over 1,000,000 of people, or one-seventh of the
entire population of England at that time, must have been depen-
dent upon it. What wonder that in 1663 a duty of 4^ per cent,
upon the produce of the island was levied by the English Parliament,
to defray the expenses of its government, and as a tribute or
contribution to the Imperial exchequer in England ? England thus
drew annually considerable sums from the country. William of
Orange looked upon this income as his personal property, and used
it for pensions and other political objects in England. This tax to
the home government was not removed till 1838. It prevailed in
all the West Indian islands, and many years in succession the con-
tribution thus paid to the English exchequer from the West Indies
amounted to more than a million and a half sterling. The colonies
paid then, at any rate ! and they possessed at the same time free
and independent governments of their own.

The present exports of Barbados are valued at over l,000,000i.
per annum ; and the imports at about the same. Of the sugar
exported about an equal quantity goes to the United States as to
the United Kingdom ; but of the molasses, twelve times as much
to the States as to the Kingdom, and to Canada twenty-six times as
much. There has been a local parliament here since 1645, with an
Upper and a Lower House. The Upper consists of eight members
nominated by the Crown. The Lower House consists of twenty-four
members in all, elected, two from Bridgetown, and two from each
of the eleven parishes. The elections are annual ; the electors are
less than one in a hundred of the inhabitants ; their qualification
is to be ratepayers of 2t per annum. There is no public debt

Riding a little way inland, all the trees seemed to be in flower ;
scarlet, bright yellow, blue and copper, with their leaves the brightest
green. We dined at Government House again and met there the
Bishop, the General, Sir J. Sealy, Judge Packer, Colonel Eccles (of
the 4th Regiment), Colonel Hill, and Colonel Clements (Inspector
of Police), in addition to those who were there last night, and
Lieutenant Fawkes, R.E., the General's A.D.C.

Dec. 2%th. — Roman Catholics went to early mass on shore, and we
had our usual services on board morning and afternoon. There was

1879. BARBADOS. 65

a funeral from the Tourmaline in the afternoon. We do not find
the tropics nearly so warm as we expected, the thermometer on board
is never much over 80°, and since we have been lying here there
has been a gentle north-east " trade " continually blowing, which
helps to keep the air delightfully cool ; we hear it is so for eight
out of the twelve months of the year.

Bee. 29th. — Arrived the English mail steamers Nile and Tiber y the
former outward, and the latter homeward bound. Heard from home,
and wrote for next day's mail. At 4 P.M. arrived H.M.S. Tamar,
Captain W. H. Liddell, going from Jamaica to the west coast of
Africa with the First West Indian Regiment. The incoming mail
brought news of the promotion of two of our messmates ; and the
order for their passage to England by the mail leaving to-morrow.
There was a cricket match in the afternoon between our eleven
and that of the Tmirmaline and garrison combined, which we won
by four wickets. It was played on the Savannah, which, is a large
flat extent of rough grass, of about a hundred acres, to south-east of
town ; round the edge runs the fashionable carriage drive, bordered
on each side by trees, and at a little distance back from the road
the barrack buildings of St. Ann's garrison. In the evening there
was a ball at Government House. It seems odd, but wc suppose
it is natural, that in the same way as when out-of-doors in our
drives or walks by day we see no white face either in the streets or
country ; so to-night there was not one black face in all the rooms,
and we wondered where all the English came from. Black men
and women everywhere all day, white men and women only to be
seen at night. *' Ortus est sol et congregati sunt et in cubilibus
suis coUocabuntur. Exibit homo ad opus suum et ad operationem
suam usque ad vesperum.'' The whites are about one out of
every ten souls in the island ; the whole population of which
is 160,000, or more than that of Portsmouth at home. It was
deliciously cool between the dances out in the broad verandahs,
looking out across the garden into the calm, still, tropic darkness,
where the great palms were standing up against " the purple night
hung with keen stars," while the noise of the crickets and whistling
frogs pulsated plaintively from a distance.

Dec. SOtL — The mail steamers Nile and Tiber sailed, one for
England, in which sub-lieutenants Rolfe and Ingram took passage
home on promotion to lieutenants, and the other to go do¥m the
islands. The Moselle and Hider arrived. We played a return
match with the Tourmalines and garrison, and won again. Mr.

56 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1879.

Childers dined at Government House with us, and took the news
home to England, for the comfort of all concerned, that our noses
were not tatooed. Colonel Eccles and the officers of the 4th
Regiment gave a dinner to Captain Lord Charles Scott and
the oflScers of H.M.S. Bacchante. The band of the regiment,
amongst other pieces, played a valae composed by the colonel
called "King's Own Royals,** which the captain so much admired
that he asked for a copy, and it henceforth became one of the
favourite tunes of the Bacchartte's band. They also performed one
or two effective pieces consisting of alternate passages, instrumental
and vocal.

Dec. ^\st. — We left the ship at 11 A.M., with the captain, three
ward-room and five gun-room shipmates, to go for a picnic given by
General Gamble at Codrington College on the other side of the
island. On landing at the Carenage Colonel Hill took charge of
the party. We filled three caixiages, and drove first to St. John's ; on
either side of the road, as thick as they could be packed, were the
negro huts of wood, each looking as flimsy as if built of cards.
They are never more than one storey in height, and are usually
supported on rows of rough stones, which raise the floor a few
inches from the surface of the ground. In size they are perhaps
twenty feet by ten. Their roofs are shingle, of wood imported
from Canada or the United States; they have no glass in the
windows, which are merely square apertures, closed either by
jalousies, or trapdoor-like shutters with hinges at the top, which,
when propped open, form effectual sunshades. Often through
the open door you can see a huge four-poster, which takes up
nearly all the interior of the family resting-place. Each hut stands
in its little garden, with bananas and maize, and swarms of black
children rolling over each other in the sun, and in the white narrow
road are old negro men and old negro women everywhere laughing,
and apparently happy, well-to-do, and sleek. These huts stretch for
a couple of miles outside the town (which contains in all about
20,000 inhabitants, or about an eighth of all in the island), and as
soon as we are clear of them come the fields of sugar-cane. Looking
back from the top of a slight hill over these towards Bridgetown
with its towers and shipping in the distance, you could for a
moment imagine you were in England, and that the green expanse
of cane was that of corn not yet ripe. But only for a moment,
for the eye catches here and there groups of tall cocoa-nut trees,
and the chimneys of the sugar mills (of which there are said to be

1879. BARBADOS. ST. JOHN'S. 67

500 in the island) and the thick \vhitish green stumps of the cane,
and these quickly undeceive you. We got our first taste of the
sugar-cane here, in the first English colony where sugar-cane was
planted. Tou cut a piece a few inches long with a knife and tear
the fibrous bark off with the teeth ; on chewing, you get, of course,
the sweet taste of the juice, but there is too much fibre in the
mouth at the same time, so that the sense of biting wood or straw
predominates. We hear that at present land fetches from 80/. to
1001. an acre here, and with good management will return ten or
twelve per cent.; guano has to be largely used to stimulate the cane.
On arriving at St. John's church (nine miles out), which, with its
square tower, its nave and short chancel, is exactly like an English
village church, approached as it is also by a grove of thick shaded
trees from the roadside, we got out and walked round the church-
yard. It stands at the edge of the eastern cliff looking right out
towards home, 4,000 miles away, for between us and all which
England contains lies nothing but that blue stretch of waters over
which comes the trade wind full in our faces ; looking down from
the top of these brown cliffs we see the surf breaking on the line
of coral reefs which extend along the whole of this eastern side of
the island at a short distance from the shore. They are broken by
one bay only, with its river, at the mouth of which there is no
white line ; the still green water inside the reef contrasts strongly
with the dark blue of the sea beyond. Barbados is nearly
encircled by coral reefs, which in some parts extend seaward
nearly three miles. Six-sevenths of its whole area is formed of this
eoraline rock and limestone. In fact the island is a succession of
limestone and coral terraces representing so many different periods
of upheaval from the sea. The iron sandstone cliff, on the edge
of which we stand, does not descend perpendicularly into the sea,
but is broken away in a manner that reminds us of the undercliff
in the Isle of Wight, with its precipitous rocks and a number of
boulders toppled over and covered with shrubs and grass. In
this churchyard we saw humming-birds for the first time — little
splashes of light darting here and there in the sun. We went into
the church, and there saw two monuments in white marble, by
Flaxman, and old tombs of 1666 and 1789, telling of old days and
of an old rigime long passed away. Mr. Sealy (son of Sir John
Sealy), the incumbent, came to us from the garden of the rectory,
which adjoins the churchyard, and gave us our first taste of fresh
cocoa-nut juice. He and two giant negroes (the "Bims," or

58 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1879.

Barbadians, are of heavier build, broader in the face and higher in
the forehead than the negroes of the other islands) sliced with Jong
carving knives the green rind from the just-gathered nuts, which
they held between their knees ; then, after punching a hole through
the white and not yet hardened shell, handed us the nuts, so that
we might tilt at once, either into our mouths or into hand-glasses,
the sweet, cool, light-coloured liquid, than which few drinks are
more refreshing. There are eleven rectors and twenty-eight curates,
each paid by the colony, as are also the Wesleyan, Moravian and
Roman Catholic pastors. There are eleven parishes in the island,
140,000 out of 160,000 of the inhabitants belong to the Church
of England, about 12,000 are Wesleyans, 4,000 Moravians, and only
500 Roman Catholics.

From St. John's we drove down through the slopes of the under-
cliff to Codrington College, passing many still more flimsy and
rickety negro-huts. On our arriving at the entrance of the long
avenue of cocoa-nut palms which leads up to the college, there was
an enthusiastic gathering of negro women, men, and children, to
see "Queen Victoria's piccaninnies." They clustered round the
first carriage that arrived, which was a wagonnette containing
mids whom they took for us, and frantically embraced every part
they could lay their hands on — the steps, door, splash-board,
kissing these and even the wheels, and overwhelming the occupants
with blessings and salutations of joy and delight. When we came
a little after, the first burst of emotion had been let off, but still
enough remained to give us a hearty welcome. The stalwart
Barbadian negro is better satisfied with himself and more indepen-
dent than any other. He may have belonged originally, in Africa,
to some higher race, for there are as great differences of race
among negroes as among European nations. The true Barbadian
bom looks down on all other negroes as beings of an inferior grade.
They are almost the only negroes who will work. The island is
so thickly populated that if they did not they would starve. In
consequence labour is cheap, and the whole island looks like a well-
kept garden. Many Bims migrate to other islands as carpenters,
smiths, &c. We took two Barbadian negro carpenters on board the
BaccJiarUe with us during the whole of our cruise in the West
Indies. They were employed on inlaying the combing of the after-
hatchway on the quarter-deck with various coloured woods ; they
did it very well and worked steadily, giving no trouble whatsoever.
They returned to Barbados from Jamaica.

1879-80. BARBADOS. CODEINGTON COLLEGE. 59

Codrington College is a long, white stone building, well and
substantially constructed. Principal Webb was not there, as it
happened to be vacation time, but the head tutor and some of the
students in cap and gown were on the grass plat in front, and went
with us into the chapel— a cool, lofty, panelled hall, where the
organ was played by one of them. We then went into the garden
at the back of the college, and sat looking out for a while over the
sea through various forms of tropic vegetation, well laid out, and
with many welcome shady corners, refreshed with breezes from the
Atlantic. Here we waited till the lunch, which we had brought
with us, was ready in the college hall. Thi3 over we went into the
library, where there is a fine collection of old books, and amongst
others some of the college prizes won at Cambridge by Bishop
Rawle of Trinidad. There is also a fine bust of General Christopher
Codrington, the founder, who in 1712 bequeathed two estates in
the island of over 700 acres to the Society for the Propagation of
the Gospel to establish a College here for the study of physics,
surgery, and • divinity. There are several scholarships of over 30/.
a year, and three of the same value paid by the colony for young
men bom in the island who cannot afford the expense of going to
Oxford or Cambridge.

We planted two or three palm-trees, in memory of our visit, along-
side the piece of water in front, and after chatting a bit with the
students we drove back round the south end of the island to
Bridgetown, where it was dusk when we arrived, and so off to the
ship, where we found that all the port watch, who had been away
on forty-eight hours general leave, had returned on board, sober
and without a single case of leave-breaking, and the starboard
watch were just going over the side for their general leave. The
bachelor's ball was given this evening, to which some of the officers
went to dance the old year out and the new year in.

Jan. \st, 1880.— Sailed H.M.S. Tamar, and at 2.15 p.m. H.M.S.
Atalanta made her number off the lighthouse on Need bam Point,
and an hour later beat up to the roads and anchored close to us.
Crossing from Teneriffe she has had just the same weather and
total absence of north-east trades that we experienced. There was
a cricket match on the Savannah between our eleven and the
Barbados Club, "The Wanderers." They played very well, and
we were thoroughly beaten. At dawn this morning Mr. Sims, the
naval schoolmaster of the Bacchante^ died in hospital, whither he
had been conveyed from the ship early yesterday morning. He

60 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

had been for some time suffering from rheumatism in his limbs,
which, however, entirely ceased the day before his death, when
it seems to have gone to his heart. He was twenty-three years
of age, and will be much missed in the ship, both as regards his
regular work with the boys (he always played the harmonium in
Church on Sunday), and also on account of the voluntary services
of help which he rendered to different members of the ship's com-
pany. He was buried to-day at 5.30 P.M. in the military cemetery
by the edge of the sea ; and George, happening to have that watch,
marched as the midshipman in charge of the funeral party of
bluejackets and marines under the first lieutenant. In the
evening the Governor, Mr. Hely-Hutchinson and Mr. Hull, dined
on board, together with the Bishop and Captain Dennistoun of the
Tourmaline and Captain Stirling of the Atcdanta,

The Atalanta and Eurydice were not sister ships, though nearly
of the same size ; the Atalanta being of 958 and the Eurydice of
921 tons displacement. The Atalanta was built at Pembroke in
1844, and after service as a man-of-war was used as a water-police
hulk at Portsmouth harbour till 1877, when the police went into
barracks. After the foundering of the Eurydice she was converted
at Pembroke into a training ship, and to increase her stability her
masts and some of her spars were shortened. After her first cruise
in the West Indies her weight of armament was reduced, additional
ballast being given in compensation. On the 7th November, 1879,
the Atalanta with 300 young seamen on board sailed from
Portsmouth for the West Indies on her third cruise of instruction,
with orders to return home about April 4.

Jan. 2nd. — Left the ship at 10 A.M. with the captain and doctor,
and six messmates from gun-room — Royds, Peel, Currey, Christian,
John and Sammy — for the pier in Bridgetown harbour, to which we
went in the steam pinnace and galley through the merchant shipping
anchorage. The piers on both sides of the harbour, which is like
an embanked river, were thronged with negroes, who swarmed still
more thickly round the landing-steps at the further end. This
was the first opportunity they had had en masse of seeing the
Queen's piccaninnies, and consequently they expressed their feelings
in a very demonstrative manner ; one old lady, name unknown,
threw a spade guinea of George the Third's, wrapt up in paper and
inscribed " a Souvenir of Barbados," into the carriage as we drove
through the town (in which the extreme irregularity of the build-
ings, and the absence of all shop windows are very striking) up to

1880. BARBADOS. FARLEY HILL. 61

Government House, which George has worn on his watch-chain ever
since. In the square by the landing-place stands a bronze statue
of Lord Nelson, who paid the island a flying visit in 1805, when he
was on search for the French, whom he caught up in October of
that year and beat at Trafalgar. This was the last spot of British
territory he trod upon in life.

The Governor and Mr. Fleming joined us, and we started to drive
to Farley Hill at the northern end of the island. The road led for
the first ten miles along the western shore to Speight's Town, where
more black people turned out enthusiastically ; they had erected
two or three arches of greenery and bright flowers across the street,
and various brilliant handkerchiefs and streamers were fluttering
from several of the one-storied huts, which here were certainly
better constructed than some we had seen at Bridgetown. In
fact several of the houses are built of brick or stone, and there
are several stores. Close to the town there are two jetties
stretching out into the sea, and some few schooners were
anchored there waiting to load with sugar. We drove through
the crowd up the hill to the police station, inside the courtyard
of which we changed horses, and after visiting some poor blacks
in the hospital of the almshouse close by, the greater number
of whom were suflFering from a sort of elephantiasis in the feet,
we drove on to Sir Graham Briggs's. He was away in England,
but we went over the fine house and garden and up to the summer-
bouse at the top of the hill, from whence there is a wide outlook
over Scotland (as all this north part of the island is called). We
had lunch, which had been sent on by the Governor, in the long
dining-room, and then adjourned to the billiard room and library
up stairs, as unfortunately it had become a wet afternoon. We
drove back the same way we had come. At one place on the right-
hand side of the road the Manchineel shmbs with their dark green
leaves were pointed out to us ; their milky juice, if merely dropped
on the skin, raises blisters or worse. In the evening there was a
ball given by the chief gentry of the island at Hastings Hotel to
Captain Lord Charles Scott and the officers of the Bacchante. The
rooms, which are all on the ground floor, were very prettily decorated,
and opened all into each other. As the whole was surrounded by
a very broad verandah, which made a spacious and cool border for
the " wall-flowers," who from where they sat could see what was
going on inside, there was ample space for dancing ; and everybody
seemed thoroughly to enjoy the hospitality extended to them.

62 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

Jan. Srd. — At 1 P.M. (after making up our logs and watch bills,
i.e. lists of the bluejackets, their ratings, duties, and stations
in each part of the ship, in which about a dozen changes
are of necessity made every week), we left the ship in the steam
pinnace and landed at the adjutant-general's wharf, just opposite
the anchorage, and drove up to Bishop's Court, where we lunched
with the Bishop, his mother, Mrs. Mitchinson, and her sister. A
young son of the black bishop of Haiti, and other youths, were
staying in the house, which is prettily situated on the top of a hill
with sloping gardens and copse all round. He showed us his pets —
monkey, cat, and dog, all happy together, and also some beautiful
specimens of foraminif era, under a large microscope, and we then
started with him in the carriage for Cole's Cave, six miles away
in the centre of the island. It was a very warm afternoon,
and we were obliged to have the hood up, and all fell oflf into
a nap on the road. Arrived there we clambered down a steep gully
profusely overgrown with green things of every shape, size, and sort
— silk-cotton trees, ferns, palms, and orchids — by the help of two
or three stalwart negroes, to the opening of the cave. Once inside
we all carried candles ; the cave is very long, and runs through the
limestone as a fissure, it is said, for miles ; and on the stream of water
which flows northwards at the bottom, and by the side of which we
walked, it is said that some ducks were once placed, which afterwards
made their way out to the eastern coast of the island. The whole
roof is one mass of stalactites ; many of these have been broken off
by negroes, who descend to get water from the stream when the
water supply outside above runs low. In the same way the province
of Yucatan in Central America is a vast table of coral rock, beneath
which flow large streams in wat^r caves. The ancient cities were
always built near these caves, and the Indians centuries ago marked
the course of these subterranean streams by heaps of stones.
Some contain fish said to be blind, like those in the mammoth
cave of Kentucky. With many of them are connected all kinds of
Indian legends or tradition. In fact you always find these caves
and streams in the limestone or coral formation. There is no
running stream above ground in Barbados, but there is plenty of
rain which percolates through to feed these underground springs.
We had brought some magnesium wire with us, of which we
from time to time lighted strips. The largest and most perfect
stalactites were up one branch to the left called the " dry cave,"
although there is as much mud and damp up there as elsewhere.

1880. BARBADOS. 63

From these paths of darkness that lead helow we ascended by
the help of the Bishop into the realms of light, and on coming
out of the cave went a short distance along the road to a place
called Sturges, from whence there was a fine view of all the north
part of the island ; on the left is the flat summit of Mount Hillaby
(the highest elevation in the island, 1,147 feet above the sea), and
on the right Chimborazo, wooded, its rival as the highest point
in the island.

In the glen was growing a giant ceiba, or silk-cotton tree, with
its roots jutting out like walls or buttresses on all sides ; the negroes
hold such to be sacred, and believe them to be haunted by
'*jumbies;" each of its boughs, seventy or eighty feet above the
ground, was as big as an average English tree.

Drove back to town in time to catch the six o'clock officers' boat
oflf to the BdceJuinte, We envied the Tourmalines, whom we saw
bathing over the side of their ship. This they do every morning
and afternoon, plunging and diving apparently regardless of the
sharks, of which there are many about, but they are easily kept at a
distance when many men are splashing in the water together.
The dead body of a horse floating out to sea was made fast astern
of the Bacchante as a bait for these gentlemen, and though the
stench was rather strong all that day and night, it attracted one or
two large sharks who were duly shot by the commander from off
the poop. At present there is no decent Sailors' .Home or Club
here, which is a great drawback, as the houses where the men
sleep when ashore on leave are filthily dirty and the grog is
something too shocking. Sir Leopold McClintock and General
G-amble have lately started a club, to be managed by a committee
of petty and non-commissioned officers for the two services, to
which the Prince of Wales sent (after our return to England) a
donation in memory of the Bacchante's cruise to the West Indies.
It was through sleeping ashore in close contact with some of the
crew of a coasting brig that had come in from one of the infected
islands, that two or three of the AtalarUa's hands took the yellow
fever, on account of which Captain Stirling afterwards ran north
into cooler latitudes when he left here, and passed St. Kitts without
communicating, for Bermuda.

[The total area of all the West Indian Islands whatsoever, and to
whomsoever belonging, is about equal to that of Great Britain ;
their total population is over 4,000,000, or about equal to that of
London, and between that of Ireland and that of Scotland. The

64 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

largest extent of this area is made up by the two great islands of
Cuba and Puerto Rico ; these, which are about equal in area to
England, belong to Spain. Haiti, about equal in area to Scotland, is
governed by two negro republics. The area of the British West
Indies is about equal to that of Wales. The greatest extent, then,
of the West Indies belongs to Spain, but the larger number of the
islands to England. Their united population, also,.is about equal to
that of the Principality — one million and a half. Of these, however,
by far the larger number are blacks. In Jamaica the proportion
is one white man to every thirty-eight negroes. On a very liberal
allowance, then, the whole white population resident in the British
West Indies is not equal in number to that of Cardiflf. This tropical
Wales however — the British West Indies proper — consists now of
six independent governorships, of six separate provinces or colonies.
Three of these are three groups of islands ; three of them ai-e
three larger islands, each a self-contained government in itself.
These last are Barbados on the east, Trinidad on the south, and
Jamaica on the west. The three groups of smaller islands, each
group an independent province or colony, are : the Leeward Islands,
or northern half of the Antilles — Antigua, Dominica, Montserrat,
St. Kitts, and Nevis ; the Windward, or southern half of the Antilles
— Grenada, Tobago, St. Vincent and St. Lucia; and the Bahamas,
the most northerly group of all, off the coast of Florida.

With these six colonies (the British West Indies proper) are
sometimes associated in popular estimation the two other outlying
colonies : Bermuda, 1,000 miles away in the North Atlantic ; and
British Guiana, 300 miles away on the north coast of South America.

At the first glance the administrative system seems far too com-
plicated for their present condition, and too costly for the restricted
resources of the West Indian communities. A stranger at once
asks whether united action between the islands would not enable
economy to be combined with efBciency ? Each island, no doubt,
has a history and traditions of its own, which it rightly treasures
with jealous pride. From the days of Cromwell to those of Nelson
they have been the battle-ground of England in her contests with
the various European powers for colonial empire and the com-
merce of the seas. Every headland and every bay has its story of
Abercromby and Rodney, so that each little island is prouder than
the next. But this is no real reason why every little colony should
treasure and maintain its separate executive and legislative body ;
'* the paraphernalia of a kingdom with the population of a small

1880. BARBADOS. 65

English town.*' One consequence is that the officials are wretchedly
paid, being so numerous ; and each confined to his own island
has no chance of promotion. Moreover, the smaller islands and
communities, like the small republics of Greece, have an undue
conception of their own importance, the same restlessness of spirit,
and the same irritability of temper which have ever been the
characteristic curse of all little commonwealths. Each also has
its own customs and tariflF, to the utter confusion of trade. In
Barbados and British Guiana, no export duties at all are levied,
and these colonies are conspicuous for industrial success. In the
other islands the import and export dues vary indefinitely. The
British West Indies want knitting up together.]

tTiwi. 4th. — Roman Catholics ashore to early mass. For our
morning service the Bishop of Barbados came oflf and preached a
compact and rousing little sermon on St Paul's " I keep under my
body and bring it into subjection." He spoke in a most pugnacious
way of ** hitting under the eye '* and ** bullying *' the flesh, by means
of self-restraint, temperance and self-denial. The men were very
attentive as he stood up and spoke to them on the main deck for
twenty minutes without note or book. After which he at once went
off for another morning service at his own cathedral ashore. At
the afternoon service on board commemoration was made of the
naval schoolmaster, Mr. Sims. The ship's company raised a good
subscription on the lower deck for a monument to be erected to
his memory, which Mr. Blunn, chaplain of the Tourmaline, has
kindly consented to see carried out after we leave, and to send them
photographs of the same, when it has been placed in the cemetery.

Jan. oth. — The Governor, the Colonial Secretary, and the
Attorney-General came off to bid good-bye, as also did Captain
Stirling and Mr. Nimmo, chaplain of the Atalania, and Lieutenants
Charrington and Fisher of the same ship. We stowed away our
pots of preserved ginger and guava jelly, cassava biscuit and dried
flying-fishes' wings (the last to be used for book-markers), and
other Barbadian curios. Got the screw up before dinner and at
3 P.M. weighed casting to port and shaped course £0uth-west-half-
south. There was a fair breeze from the north-east, so that in the
evening we were able to set stunsails.

Jan. 6th. — At 8 A.M. we sighted Tobago on the port bow and at
1 P.M. Trinidarl, We have been sailing pleasantly along, making
over SIX knots the last twenty-four hours, and thus cover 130 miles
at noon to-day, which leaves fifty-nine. If we had now steamed

VOL. I. F

CRUISE OF n.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1880.

wo could have got into Port of Spain the same evening, but we
shall spend another cool night at sea outside the gulf.

BARBADOS TO TRINIDAD.

Date.

Jan.
5
6

From Previous Noon.

Course.

S. 42 W.

Distance.
Sail. Steam.

130
53

186

Wind.

At Noon,
Long.

Lat

Temperature.
Air.

Sea.

Noon. 6 P.M.

N.E. ^-e-s

I N.E. 4
I N.E. 2.4

Total distance 230 miles.

N.
11-29

ei'5

79
79

Noon. 6 p.m.

79
79
79

77
79
79

76
79
80

At 6 P.M. rove screw purchase and down screw and then tried to
tack, but missed stays and so wore ship. The operation was
repeated several times during the night as we stood on and oflf
from the land.

Trinidad, next to Jamaica, is the largest of the West Indian
islands ; it is 48 miles long and 65 broad ; its area is about the
same as that of Lancashire. It is really an outlying part of South

1880. BARBADOS TO TRINIDAD. 67

America rather than one of the Antilles. Its geographical
position is one of great importance both commercially and
politically. Its proximity to the delta of the Orinoco, that
vast artery that leads to the very heart of the South American
republics, entitles it to become the entrep6t of much of their
commerce. It was sighted by Columbus in his third voyage to
the New World, on 31st July, 1496, when, in accordance with his
vow to call the first land which he might see by the name of the
Holy Trinity, he christened it La Trinidad. But the Spaniards
never made much of the island till 1783.

Jan, 7th. — At 8 A.M. the next morning commenced steaming,
and at 9.30 A.M. shortened and furled sails. We entered the
Gulf of Paria, through that one of the Dragons' mouths called
the Boca de Monos. The early morning had been showery, but it
cleared up as we passed into the passage, so that we were able
thoroughly to enjoy its beauties. The hills from their very
summits down to the waters edge on either side are green; at
first you imagine from a little distance they are covered with grass,
but this resolves itself on your coming closer into a jagged and
feathered mass of gigantic trees ; those on the sky-line stand out
clear and distinct, and you begin to appreciate their size by con-
sidering those that hang over the rocks a^d shores beneath. To
these in some places we approach within a cable's length first on
one hand and then on the other. Here and there the woods are
broken into by clearings on which stand a hut or two and gardens
of bananas and other fruits : islands and bays alternate, and small
groups of fishennen's huts with patches of white sandy beach in
front, on which their nets are spread to dry and their canoes hauled
up. In one bay on the port side just before enteriug the gulf was
the stranded wreck of a large coolie ship, which had been taken
ashore here by the current, which sets very strong through the
passage, so that it is very difficult and almost impossible to make
the Monos Channel under sail. The difference between the colour
of the bottle-green water in the bay and that of the sea outside is
great : the waters in the bay contain the muddy discharge of the
waters of the Orinoco, " waters from the peaks of the Andes 1,500
miles away," which flow into the gulf through its southern entrance.
Away on the starboard hand right across on the western shore of
the bay we get our first glimpse of the Spanish Main, where the
mountains of Venezuela are towering above the clouds. We alter
course to the eastward, and come to our anchorage three miles from

F 2

(58

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1880.

the shore at 2 P.M. oflF Port of Spain, the buildings of which we
can just see in the distance through the masts and rigging of a
whole line of coasters and merchant ships which are lying further
in between us and them. There is not a breath of air stirring here :
we are shut in completely from the trade wind which rushes along
half a mile above our heads.

AT TRINIDAD.

Datx.

Wind.

Tempkbatuke.

A.
6 P.M.

Air.

Noon.

Noon

6 p.m. 1

Jan.

O 1

Calm

Variable 1*2

lis.

Variable 1-2

Variable 1

Variable 1-2

Variable 1

Variable S'l

Variable 1-2

IBS.

S.E. 1-2

E. 3-1

Calm

N. 1-41

On the right as the sun goes down we see the long straight lines
of heavy mist rising from the swamps at the mouth of the Caroni
river, while away on the left rise the wood-covered hills with here
and there bright patches of flowers, amongst others a great yellow-
blossomed poui-tree. The Governor's aide-de-camp came oflF, and
Captain Lord Charles Scott went ashore to call on Sir Henry
Irving. That evening a lai'ge party of sixteen officers fh)m the
ship (eight of them from gun-room) dined at Government House,
and then went to a ball given by Mr. Leon Agostini, a non-
official member of the council. Here the floral decorations were
the prettiest we have ever seen. Coloured lamps were festooned
up both sides of the long avenue that leads to the open space
immediately in front of ** Coblentz." The lawn with its flower-
beds was thrown into strong relief, for round the outside edge
were standing a row of brown and black men holding lights
which burnt now red, now blue, now yellow. The outlines of the
one storied house itself were ablaze with rows of white lamps, which

1880. THINIDAD— PORT OF SPAIN. 69

ran round every window and doorway. The broad marble-paved
verandahs which extended ail round the exterior were left unlighted,
a cool retreat from the ball-room inside, where those who sat or
walked could look out on the coloured flower-beds, down to which,
if they felt inclined, they could wander on the dry gravel walk. In
the garden at the back of the house Mr. Agostini had erected a
large supper-room in which all the guests, about 400, could be
seated at once. There were three long tables with one cross one ;
the interior was decorated with many flags and small arms arranged
in stars and other designs. The passage to the supper-room was
through the large glass conservatory which in its turn formed a
pleasing retreat. The whole place with its well-arranged com-
binations of sulxiued light and tropic foliage seemed to us more
like fairyland than anything else. Everything went oflf uncom-
monly well, and at supper, as it was past midnight after the
health of the Queen had been drunk and that of the Prince and
Princess of Wales, every one wished Eddy many happy returns of
his birthday ; then off to the ship in the steam pinnace.

Jan. %ih, — To-day both of us were rated midshipmen ; we were at
the time the only two naval cadets in the gunroom. Not a breath
of wind, and though the thermometer shows only 80^ yet there is
a more oppressive feeling in the moisture-laden air than we have
ever known before. The hot black hull of the ship lying at anchor
retains the heat long after the sun has gone down. In the after-
noon Mr. Sendall (secretary to Local Government Board, Whitehall,
and who was Director of Education in Ceylon when the Duke of
Edinburgh visited that island), a guest of the Governor's, Mr. Wilson,
and Mr. Tanner (Director of Public Works), came off and arranged
about excursions in the island next w^eek. After dinner the
** Snowdrop Minstrels " (the Bacchantes Christy Minstrels, com-
posed of blue jackets and marines) made their first appearance ;
White, Cooper, Emery, Nash and Golding, were the chief performers
on this occasion, the latter being the best hand as "Bones" and as
a step-dancer. So ended Eddy's birthday festivities.

Jan. Qth. — General quarters as usual on Friday. In the afternoon
we landed in the officers' boat and went up with some other mids,
and had a good afternoon at lawn-tennis in the Government House
grounds, which are very pretty, and in which we saw the cottage
where Mr. Kingsley stayed, and then had a swim in the fresh
water bath-house close by. We walked down to the jetty and
came off to the ship by the six o'clock boat. The negroes here

70 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

seem to be quite diflferent from those at Barbados, they cheered
very well and did not jump about so much. Several fat negresses
were sitting here and there with trays of abominable-looking
half-melted sweetmeats in the streets.

Jan. 10th. — Left the ship at 10 A.M. and went ashore in the steam
cutter, and were met on landing by Captain Holder, aide-de-camp,
and Captain Baker of the police force. The street from the land-
ing place is broad and straight ; we drove across the Marine Square
with its fountain in the centre, and palm-trees and wooden ware-
houses around with shady arcades, in front of which are lying bales
of goods and casks. At the corner stands the Club-house, and away
to the right rise the two towers of the Roman Catholic Cathedral.
The square-towered English Church we pass further up the street
on the left hand side, and then the long new Government Buildings
brick-built and capacious. Over the garden walls on each side hang
bright purple flowers, or up aloft from behind them stand the long-
fingered tapering cactuses twenty or thirty feet high ; then past the
hospital on the right hand side. Further on are gardens round
the single-storied, bright-painted villas, all without chimneys or
glass windows ; they look out into the park or grass savannah in
front that lies on our left hand, fringed with trees, till at last
we come to the little lodge or guard house at the entrance of the
Botanic Gardens, where the sentry turns out to salute, and so to
Government House, which has a projecting porch over the front
door like that at Sandringham; here we found that the captain
had been stung that morning in the bath-house by a huge wasp ;
"a caution to bathers.*' We lunched at 11 A.M., and at 1 P.M.
three wardroom and three gunroom shipmates joined us, and so
did Mr. and Mrs. Agostini and Mr. Wilson (who hails from
Deeside), and we drove out to the Blue Basin, past the barracks
at St. Anne's at the end of their heavy avenue (where a company
of the 4th Regiment is stationed), and through the coolie village,
where the Asiatic features of the thin-limbed men and women
standing about, the latter with silver bangles on their arms and
feet, or rings in their noses, and many of the former with some
caste-mark of paint on their foreheads, contrast strangely with
the thick-limbed brawny negro. Some of the coolies are Chinese.
All the houses stand on stilts to let the air under their floors,
and all the cooking is done away from them in a small out-house
behind, or between a few stones on which the pot rests ; the washing
at the bay behind under the coco palms which fringe its edge.

1880. TEINIDAD-HIGH WOODS. 7i

The gni-gm paJms, the cacao plants with their heavy brown pods,
the bois immortel in full scarlet bloom on its grey branches each
without a single leaf, and the whole aglow like a burning bush
against the blue sky, and numerous other tropic plants and
trees were very fine ; but it came on to rain, heavy and pouring,
and we had to go into a wooden cottage (on stilts like all others) in
the wood amongst bananas and cacao plants for shelter, and never
got to the actual Blue Basin at all. We returned in time for the
six o'clock boat from the jetty and came off in the steam cutter
with Mr. Lawless and Sceales, who met us there ; they had been
out botanizing, but had not had a drop of rain, though we were
wet through.

Jan, Wth. — At 8.30 A,M. the captain and John (who, to keep his
uncle in countenance, has been badly stung in the eye by a
mosquito) came on board. Morning service at 10 A.M. on the
upper deck under the awnings ; we were interrupted, however, by
what turned out to be a false alarm of coming wind and rain, and
the service was hastily concluded and the awnings furled ; neither
the one nor the other appeared, and the sun shone on in full
meridian tropic heat for the rest of the day.

Jan, VUh, — Left the ship at 9 A.M., a party of eighteen officers
or more, landed and went straight to the station, where we met the
Governor and his aide-de-camp and Mr. Sendall. Went in a special
train under the charge of Mr. Tanner (Director of Public Works)
and Mr. Marryatt by San Josef to Couvas, through woods and
clearings and sugar plantations. When crossing the Caroni river
noticed the mangrove-trees with their curious roots standing out
from the mud, and then past a lofty tree on the left, from which
dangled several orioles' nests like pouches, each more than a
yard in length, and which on returning we took home with us.
The bird, to defeat the monkeys and lizards, weaves these purse
nets, and suspends them by a twisted cord of creepers from the end
of a bough. At the bottom of the purse is the nest with entrance
from below : and there, as in a hammock, she swings backwards
and forwards in the breeze. We got out of the train at Couvas,
which is the furthest point the line is yet made to, eighteen miles
from the junction at San Josef, twenty-four miles in all from Port
of Spain, and there saw the Boman Catholic padre and the Protestant
pastor, and drank the Queen's health with them and the railway
people ; then back to Chaquanas (Shagwan) and from there mounted
some open trucks, in which wooden chairs and boards were arranged

72 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

for seats, aad went up along the tramway drawn by mules through
the primeval forest to Mr. Neilson's wooden cottage with its deep
verandahs and cool rooms. He came originally from Dumfriesshire,
and knew the Duke of Buccleuch before Lord Charles was bom.
He has been forty-five years out here and is now the " patriarch of
the forest." Unfortunately it was wet, but the captain, who had had
his photographic apparatus brought up into the forest, took a few
photos of the trees in the rain. We then sat down to lunch,
which we had brought with us, and after that Mr. Marryatt, Dr.
Lloyd, Mr. Lawless, and ourselves, tramped oflF under Mr. Neilson's
guidance into the High Woods and saw a balati tree pierced ; the
wound on the bark Ls first red, and from this swiftly comes forth
thick white milk ; which in an hour's time will congeal into gutta-
percha. We could not find a water-vine, but enjoyed hacking and
hewing with a long knife-cutlass at the trumpet trees and tough
creepers, which trail and clasp and intermingle around and above
the underwood of cactuses, palms, orchids, and what not. A
beautiful blue moth as big as a bat went flying by over the
crotons with their many-coloured leaves. We could not help
thinking much of Mr. Kingsley and his book At Last, which we
have been reading lately ; but we were told that the full untouched
beauty of the High Woods, as he describes them, was now three or
four miles further on, as all the larger trees, though several of
those here appear giants to us, have been cut out near the convict
establishment. These forests extend all across the island, but
are being gradually cleared on each side of the rail, and on the
rich soil thus laid bare cacao plantations and sugar cane are
being reared. The railway costs 10,000/. a mile, as all the ballast
has to be brought from Port of Spain, but when it reaches to
San Fernando, twenty-one miles further, it will pay at least 8 or
9 per cent, on the capital expended. It is all Government work,
and on its returns the revenue of Trinidad in a great measure
depends. We saw the coolies and the negroes promiscuously
working together upon it under white foremen.

On arriving at Government House in the evening we found
Fuller and the luggage ; but before going to our rooms all walked
otT across the gardens for a bathe in the bath-house, where the
Doctor frolicked and frisked and turned somersaults in the water
and dived for shillings thrown to the bottom, as agile and as lithe
as any youngster. Mr. Pyne sent across to the bath from the
cottage some tea and biscuits, which were veiy jolly. The new and

1880. TJRINIDAD— GOVERNMENT HOUSE. 73

substantially-built Qovemment House stands in the middle of
the old Botanical Gardens in a lovely situation, and with its lofty
rooms and deep verandahs was designed by Mr. Ferguson on Indian
model. Our rooms were at the top, looking out upon the woods.
In the verandah outside Mr. Prestoe (the Curator) had arranged
some screens of ferns and crotons in front of two Indian hammocks
there slung in the shade, and had provided other fresh and lovely
flowers all about the rooms, amongst which were a quantity of
English roses, which he renewed every morning. Up under the
eaves of the roof the long paper nests of the Jack Spaniard wasp
were hanging, odd looking like bits of comb, and out of which
had come those that stung the captain and his nephew, who are
occupying the next room to ours. Lizards nin about everywhere.
The Doctor dosed us all with quinine before we went down to
dinner, to which came, amongst others, Mr. Bushe (the Colonial
Secretary) and Captain Baker, so that we were twenty-two in
all. This island is in striking contrast with Barbados : that was
all sugar-cane where it is not rock, this is full of great trees and
most luxuriant vegetation of all kinds.

Jan, \Wi. — Woke very early to the sound of the birds, who
have a fine time of it here, as no bird of any sort or kind, under
any pretence whatever, is allowed to be shot in the island : one
was a brown and yellow bird, whose clear ringing note something
like a thrush's has been fancied to resemble "Qu'est ce qu'il veut?"
"^ What's he want ? " others had a scream like the peacock's ; the
swallows and wrens and other smaller birds were scudding all
about, as we went across the gardens to bathe before breakfast.
This was at 9.30 A.M. ; we then tasted for the first time " pepper
pot," and chirimoyas, and aligator or avocado pears, large round
brown fruit with a light green buttery pulp round the central
stone which you scoop out with a spoon and eat with pepper and
salt; it is more a vegetable than a fruit, and is nicknamed "mid-
shipman's butter." Then started for the station through the town
by the same road we came up yesterday ; the black vultures, never
molested (for they consume the carrion of the streets), were hopping
lazily about and standing on the roofs of the houses like spread-
eagles with their wings extended to dry in the morning sun.
We left by the ordinary 11 A.M. train for San Josef, several officers
from the ship joining oar party. At San Josef, ten miles from
Port of Spain, mounted on ponies, rode through the town along the
broad grass-grown streets to Monsignore Orsini's, who, although

74 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

resident here, is a Corsican proprietor. There are many Corsicans
in the island ; their ancestors came here from San Domingo at the
time of the overthrow and massacre of the French colony there by
the negroes at the outbreak, in 1790, of the French revolution. We
dismounted for a few minutes and went into his drawing-room and
tasted his wine ; then on to the ponies again and out to Marracas
Fall, past the church at the brow of the hill, the western door of
which was open, so that we saw at the end of the nave and before
the altar the light of the Perpetual Presence burning, and the bell
in the tower was clanging. All the negroes and coolies of the
villages on the road had hung out flags and made arches of
crotons, bamboos and hibiscus (a trumpet-shaped crimson flower),
and stepped out in twos or threes to offer oranges or other trifles to
us both as we rode along. The valley we are riding up is the one
that was first colonised in early Spanish days ; the road crosses and
recrosses the stream, which in parts is like a clear English, Welsh,
or Scotch trout burn, except that the palms and bamboos alone now
and then remind us that we are in the tropics ; the hills on either
side the valley are clothed to their summits with dense forest
verdure, but here and there this has been cleared, and we ride along
narrow paths through the brown-podded shrubs of the caoao
plantations. When we arrived at the cascade we found it was very
full of water, owing to the last few days' heavy rain ; it throws itself
over a steep cliff which rises at the head of the valley sheer for 300
feet, and comes down in spray jets into the pool below that is
surrounded with bright ferns and mosses. Some of us bathed in
the pool, but found the waterfall too stinging. Returning down the
valley along the narrow and muddy path, one of us had a narrow
escape of a roll over down the green abyss, for his pony slipped and
over he went at once, but felt the strong arms of a l)lack round
him, who with his large feet held fast to the mud, lifted him up,
then trotted on ahead unconcernedly as if nothing unusual had
occurred. We lunched in a marquee halfway down the valley, at
which Monsignore Orsini, having come out in his hooded buggy,
joined us, and several officers of the 4th Regiment. Afterwards, on
the grass outside, there was some negro wrestling and singlestick,
then back to the station and home. On returning, the views
appeared finer than they did on going up ; one outlook over the
plain was very much like that over the sea in the distance ; at
another spot just above San Josef, from the front of the church
with the yews on the right, the plain looked, in the low evening

1880. TKINIDAD— AKIMA. 75

sunlight, just like an English park with its grass and large rounded
trees standing here and there in the paddocks. The land has in-
creased upon the sea here much as it is doing in the Wolferton
marshes at home upon the Wash ; and where Sir Walter Baleigh
rowed up in his barge is now dry land.

The same day a party of officers from the ship went away in the
steam pinnace up the Caroni river to shoot alligators and iguanas,
and got five. While they were lying-to under some trees in the
river one of these latter deliberately dropped from an overhanging
bough vrith such good aim that he went head-foremost down the
stoke-hole of the pinnace, to the consternation of the stoker,
who was at first in doubt whether it was a shark or the devil who
had thus come on board seeking to devour him.

Jan, \¥k, — Walked across the gardens as usual before break-
fiast, down through Mr. Kingsley's cane brake, to the bath in front
of the cottage in which he stayed. The weather was showery, yet
started, after a cup of coffee with the Doctor and Mr. Sendall, at 9.30
A.M. for the train, where we met Mr. Tanner, Mr. Marryatt (of San
Fernando), Mr. Wilson (commissioner for north of the island), and
four officers of the 4th Begiment, and then off to Arima, nine
miles beyond San Josef junction. The sixteen miles of this line
were opened in 1876. The tropic woods here are lovely as else-
where, and the village is prettily situated. We drove up to the
Rest House, where breakfast was ready. It came on pouring with
rain, and for an hour or so we could not go out. At last it cleared
a bit, and we started for a cacao plantation on the other side of
the river, where we saw the berries from the pods dried, spread on
large flat drawers which are pulled out when the sun shines, and
shoved in when the rain comes. Then we all undressed, leaving our
clothes in the wooden hut, and rushed through the wood in nothing
but mackintoshes down to the river, where we had a capital bathe
in a great pool and a long reach, down which came tumbling and
floating great logs of wood, on which some in vain tried to straddle.
Then again to the hut on ponyback, careering round the racecourse.
Afterwards rode up from this to the top of the Calvary, where to
Eddy, who had dismounted and was sitting on the stone steps of
the cross, a dozen or more of the descendants of the aboriginal
Indians, short, thickset men, square-faced, yellow tawny and heavy-
featured, were presented. Their hands are small-boned and deli-
cately shaped. There are but few of this race now in Trinidad, and
they are the remains of the tribes that were here before Columbus

76 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

sailed into the bay : most of those who have survived the incoming
of the Spaniard, the French, the negro, and the coolie, have
migrated from the island across the gulf to the mainland, and now
live round the mouths of the Orinoco. Those we saw, however,
professed to be quite contented with their lot, and asking in their
quiet caressing way if they might touch his feet, seemed pleased,
and said " that under God they had now no prince but the Queen."
There was a fine broad view from this Calvary away over the
valleys and woods and plain to the gulf beyond. On our
returning to the Rest House some of these Indians came and
danced a fandango on the grass in front, and then gave their shak-
shaks to us (these are short sticks a little over a foot long, at the
upper end of which is a round dried seed-ball, four inches in
diameter and hollow, with a few seeds which are rattled by the
performer to mai-k time with his dancing). Also an old man grey-
haired, who had walked miles to join the sport, presented an
extraordinary-shaped supplejack stick, and a woman a lot of
flowers. Here too came some coolies, the fathers carrying the
children in their arms. They seemed to be uncommonly fond of
their children: one of the fathers stood with his black-haired,
round-cheeked, clear-eyed handsome little lad in his arms to be
admired in front of the Rest House patiently for a couple of
hours. At length George gave the boy a piece of cake: the
father went away and came back bringing crackers, which he
proceeded to let ofif on the ground in sign of his joy that his boy
waa admired. We heard that this man was one of the best of the
lot, and most successful. The coolie immigration, which is con-
ducted under the most stringent regulations as to the number that
any planter may contract with, and as to their housing, nourishment,
and medical attendance, has enabled the Government to open up
the resources of this island most wonderfully. So intimate and
mutually beneficial is the connection that binds together the
several portions of the British Empire, and enables the Hindoo
of Asia to attain to freedom and plenty in the empty islands
of the Caribbee in America. (There is a good account of the
Coolie Immigration in At Last, pp. 117 to 124, and of the
Education Acts for the island at pp. 344 to 363). At the end of
the five years for which they contract. Government is bound to find
them a free passage back to India : but so contented are they with
their lot here that but few avail themselves of this, and they prefer
to exchange it for a Government grant of ten acres of land and settle

1880. TRINIDAD- COOLIES. 77

down on their savings in Trinidad, where they form entire villages
of their own : and the savings they amass are really extraordinary.
A very practical result of the system is this — every year ships
take back to India returning coolies, with, on an average, seven to
eight thousand pounds between some 400 or 600 souls, exclusive of
quantities of jewellery, often of great value. And, strange as it may
appear, incoming ships bring back many coolies who have spent or
lost their money, who are returning in order to get more, and not
only that, but bring relatives and friends with them. Some rise in
the scale of society, become hotel-keepers, cab proprietors, owners
of race-horses or cattle farms. The contrast between the poor,
abject, slouching, half-starved individual who crawls on board ship
at Garden Reach, Calcutta, and the erect, self-important man who
struts about his West Indian home, clothed in gaudy raiment,
with a goodly balance at the local savings bank, is immense. In
India they cannot earn more than l^d. or 2,d, a day. Here they
earn 10s. or lis. per week. Food good and ample is found for
them, house room, and in case of sickness better hospitals and
attendance than can be found in most English villages. By the
Education Act all the youngsters are compelled to attend school
some hours every day. If hardships or injustice arise, there is
always the immigration agent or the local magistrate whence to
seek redress, and many barristers, who make a good living out of
the coolie, for the latter loves to go to law. The skilled coolies, as
a rule, finish their tasks (if they labour by piece-work) at 1 P.M.,
and the feeblest about 3 P.M., including all times for meals. Such
labour cannot be called excessive. Formerly their number was
insignificant ; now they form nearly one-third of the population of
Trinidad : and if adult males only are reckoned the proportion of
coolies is much larger. [In the last three years the influx of these
assisted emigrants has been about 3,000 a year into Trinidad.
British Guiana and Trinidad together have taken 90,000 between
1871 and 1882, and during the same period 16,875 have returned
to India, taking with them as their savings no less than 328,243/.]
Doctor Crane, the head of the medical service in the island, and
Mr. Pierre, one of the few pure-blooded negroes who have attained
to the position of magistrate, and who might both by his manners
and speech pass anywhere for an English gentleman, came in and
were presented. We got back to Government House by 6 p.m. :
after dinner went at 8 P.M. to hear the oratorio of Elijah performed
in Prince's Buildings. It was very well rendered, especially the

78 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

instrumental part. We stayed to the end of the first half, and
then went home. As we lay in bed after the lights were put out
it was very curious to observe through the mosquito curtains the fire-
flies— little puffs of white light flitting here and there all over the
room : they don't shine continuously, but apparently flash up for a
second when they like.

Jan. 15th. — Started at 10 A.M. on horseback with Mr. Wilson,
Mr. Agostini, Mr. Marryatt, Captain Baldwin, and Mr. Sendall, to
go over the Saddle and Gap to La Pastora, Mr. Borde's place, to
lunch. We had a beautiful ride up the Maravilla Valley and over
the Saddle (a curious ravine at the top of the hill), and then down
through San Antonio, one of the best cacao plantations in the
island, and which belongs to the chief justice. The banana is always
planted along with the young cacao, in order that its large leaves
may act as an umbrella to the young cacao shrubs, which cannot
bear exposure to the direct rays of the sun. We rode through
woods in which the bamboos, the oranges, the candle-trees, and all
the vegetation were growing most luxuriantly. At the police
station we met the Governor, who had driven round another way
by road in the carriage, and shortly after arrived at La Pastora, a
very pretty villa, where we dismounted, and then went down, half a
dozen of us, to the stream a quarter of a mile oflf to bathe. No
sooner were we in the water than it came on to pour with rain, and so
we had some difficulty to keep our clothes dry, but carried them up
with us under umbrellas in bundles across the lawn, as there were
no ladies in the party, to the house, and there dressed. After a capital
lunch and much kindness from Mr. Borde we rode back. The rain,
however, came down in floods, and we were soaked to the skin ; and
in this state envied one or two of the glistoning-skinned natives
that we passed on the road, who had all the shelter they needed
for their heads under palm-leaves which they carried in their hands.
It was intensely hot riding in these steaming clothes, although the
thermometer marked only 82°. Arrived at Government House, got
into dry clothes, and, as the rain had ceased, started at once to
the cricket-match which eleven of our officers were playing against
a team of eighteen Bacchante bluejackets. The men were out for
thirty-nine, and the officers scored fifty for seven wickets. The
ground was in an abominably mashy state owing to the heavy rain.
The first lieutenant was scoring. The men had a capital dinner
provided for them under the shelter of the grand stand close by.
Torrents of rain that night.

1880. TRINIDAD— HUMMING-BIRDS. 79

Jan, 16/A. — Very wet. We were to have had a quiet day in the
Botanical Gardens, but most of the morning we had to stay at
home and were knocking the balls about in the billiard-room,
where also was " Theophrastus Such," just arrived from England,
for those who preferred his converse. A little parrot, sent up as a
present, and a lap, which is a strange thing, half pig and half dog,
with a snout and bristles like a porcupine, arrived. In the after-
noon walked up with Mr. Sendall, Currey, and Dr. Lloyd to " The
Folly " behind the house, from which we got a good view over the
bay southward. Passed many convicts employed in the grounds
sweeping up the leaves and working in the garden. We passed
many patches of the sensitive plant, and convolvuluses of every
hue, and saw many poui-trees in flower, the large yellow blossoms
of which are like a foxglove, only bigger. Nearly all the trees here
bear flowers ; and at first it has a most strange cfl*ect to see a great
tree like an ash covered to the summit with blossom like a
scarlet geranium. We picked up a lot of gru-gru nuts which
had been dropped all over the place by children going up to play,
and also round sand-box pods ; these last burst with a loud noise
and shed their seeds: they make capital paper-weights when
filled with lead. At the top met two or three Roman Catholic
priests, and in course of conversation leamt their ideas, without their
knowing who we were, of things in general, Trinidad in particular,
more especially concerning the Bacchante, which we could see lying
oflF in the roads. Then back to the house. The usual bathe in the
bath-house before dinner, going down to it under the palms and
giant bamboo bushes close to the cottage where Kingsley stayed
with Sir Arthur Gordon — it was Government House in those days —
and from which he wrote his letters which appeared in Good Words,
In the evening the fire-flies were out all over the grass. We heard
first this morning the hum of the humming-birds, "the souls of
dead Indians translated into living jewels." We were standing
in one of the deep verandahs that surround the house behind a
large trailing creeper that hung down and completely hid us from
sight. It was covered on the outside with a number of large pink
flowers ; round these the humnding-birds were flitting, though owing
to their quick movement we could not see them unless the sun-
light fell on their flashing colours. The whirr of their tiny wings
as they spun within two inches of our ears, on the other side of the
veil of creeper, was most peculiar and resembled the sound of a
large top. At a little further distance off you would not hear

80 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

it, since there is nothing to conduct the sound as there is in the
case of a top spinning on the floor or tahle. The humming-birds
and the fireflies with their intermittent flashes of light, the bird
in the day time and the firefly at night, make two of the weirdest
eflfects imaginable. At 9 p.m. the Governor gave a ball to about
400 guests in the large new room, which opens out from one end
of the drawing-room, and to which many officers came from the
ship.

Jan. 17th. — There was to have been a cricket-match between the
Bdcchantes and the Trinidad club, but it had been so wet in the
night that it had to be given up. At 11.30 A.M. started in the
train for a ten miles run to San Josef, the old capital of the
island, and visited Mr. Giuseppi, senior, where we saw the sugar-
cane mill, which was set working this morning: the season
has been so wet or it would naturally have been at work some
weeks ago. We saw the canes being cut by the negroes with their
long cutlasses, stripped, piled in the carts, brought into the mill,
pressed, the juice run through, then boiled and skimmed. Within
twenty-four hours of their being cut the canes must be pressed
under a wheel, and the liquid runs off into a trough. It looks like
muddy water ; it is collected in tanks and clarified with cow's blood
or sulphuric acid, as it simmers over the fire. When it ferments
they cease to boil it, and put in lime half an ounce to 100 gallons.
Then a thick scum rises to the top and as it cools hardens. This
cracks on the suiface and the liquid molasses sink to the bottom
and become syrup and drain away into another cistern. Then it
is put in a pan boiler, or vacuum pan. It then becomes a thick
toffee-like substance, and is baled out in pails and thrown into
centrifugals, with small quantities of water added to whiten it.
The revolving oscillators, things like paddle-wheels, which are
turned slowly round in the syrup while it is cooling, cause it to
ooze out at the perforations, and the sugar remains behind beauti-
fully dry and white. This is the old way of making sugar ; we are
to see another at the usine at San Fernando. The remaining
molasses is re-boiled and subjected to the same process again ; and
an inferior sugar is the result. From the treacle which remains
at last rum is distilled. The negroes and coolies who are
working together in the mill seemed much pleased with
our visit. We lunched with Mr. Giuseppi in the old house
at Van Saine, the drawing-room of which is the identical
one in which the capitulation of the island in February 1797

1880, TRINIDAD. 81

was signed, on the one side by Don Alonzo Chacon "last
and best of the Spanish governors," and by General Abercromby
and Admiral Harvey on the other, in which it was stipulated
that all "the capitulators and their sons after them should be
Englishmen, and counted as such, whether they were French or
Spaniards up to that time," and so " I am an Englishman, and proud
to be so," said the old gentleman. At lunch too was Mr. Farfan,
whose ancestors came to the island in 1640, from one of the oldest
families of Spain. It is curious to observe how both the French
and Spanish here have become such out-and-out Englishmen :
they dread nothing so much as the withdrawal of British rule,
which would mean their being absorbed by the republic of
Venezuela over the water and faUing back into a state of chaos.
Trinidad in fact, from its large and varied resources, nearly wholly
undeveloped, and its excellent geographical position, bids fair to
become, not many years hence, one of the most valuable- possessions
of the British Crown. The island contains over a million acres of
fertile soil ; only a tenth part is now cultivated ; nearly the whole
of the remainder is unappropriated Crown land. The population is
less than that of Barbados (though in extent it is three times as
large as that island). Commercially, Trinidad takes the lead of
British Guiana and every British West Indian colony, without
exception. With its teeming soil and salubrious climate, it is
capable of supporting over a million inhabitants, ten times the
number that it now does. The government is administered by a
Governor, with an Executive Council of three members (the colonial
secretary, the attorney-general, and the senior military oflScer).
The legislative body is a council of six official and eight unofficial
members, all of whom are appointed by the .Crown from repre-
sentative residents, the only object being to get the ablest and
most competent advisers on local matters. Sir Arthur Gordon,
the late Governor, established a capital system of public
education in the colony, and the present Governor has done
much for remodelling taxation. Before his time all uncultivated
lands were taxed a shilling an acre and the cultivated lands five
shillings an acre, which was a premium on keeping the land
uncultivated. But now all land, whether cultivated or not. is
taxed one shilling an acre, to the great advantage of the colony,
as each man has everything to gain by clearing and cultivating his
holding. The same principle has been carried out as regards
import dues : everything brought to the island was heavily taxed,
VOL. I. G

82 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

but the Governor has persuaded his council to sweep away all these
dues, and to make the Port of Spain a free port ; the only three
things that pay duty on entrance are spirits, tobacco, and kerosine
oil. Since this ordinance was passed, the commerce of course has
greatly increased. The imports have doubled themselves in ten
years, and now stand at nearly three millions sterling, the exports at
about the same figure. Ultimately all taxation will be reduced, and
locomotion by rail will pay for all the expenses of government. Not
many English come out here from home, as some capital is required
for taking up land as cleared. Yet why should they not, if fond of
the tropics? Two hundred acres will cost 200/. to buy; on this say
3,000/. would have to be spent spread over six years, or perhaps even
up to the end of the tenth year. This would then (they say) give a net
income of 1,400/. for fifty years at least. This is in cacao planting.
(Law, Hovj to Edahlisk and Ctdtivate an Estate of One Square Mile
in Cacao, 1865.) This year the survey of the island has been com-
pleted, and the boundaries of the provinces and estates laid down
with some approach to accuracy, though out and away the largest
portion of the island is still virgin soil or primeval forest. It is to
be feared that previous to this there were many forged certificates
of land, and much peculation, by unprincipled coloured officials who
misbehaved themselves in other ways, but who have been lately
routed out.

We each planted two trees, one on either side of the road
up which Sir Walter Raleigh advanced to San Josef when he
landed in the Caroni river. We returned to Port of Spain by
train, riding on the engine, and then drove to the new police
barracks, over the airy rooms and passages of which we went, and
then saw the volunteers, who were drawn up in the quadrangle
below, put through their drill, and so home. Walked with Mr.
Prestoe through the Botanical Gardens and chose some orchids to
be sent to Sandringham, including one called Spirito Santo, the
flower of which is exactly like a dove, and another, called the
Lady's Slipper, very pretty. We wanted to get the seeds or cut-
tings of some of the many odd-shaped flowers that go trailing
and twisting about so fantastically and are of all sorts of colours.
But the gardener told us the seeds would not bear exporting, they
invariably lose their fructifying power during trans-shipment
to England. Saw the grove of dark-leaved nutmeg trees laden
with their bright yeUow fruit, slit at the side and showing
the red mace and nut in the interior; also the clove plants

1880.

TRINIDAD— BOTANICAL GARDENS.

on which the cloves form before the flower comes; then to the
calabash-trees and the cannon-ball tree, the fruit of which is as
large as a sixty-eight pounder (roundshot), an unpleasant sort of
thing to have fall on your head ; it is not used for any purpose.
Saw also the papaw tree, under the leaves of which if a piece of
tough meat is hung it becomes tender in a few hours, and then the
bread-fruit tree, with large green fruit and deeply cut leaves a foot or
more across, and the banana, *' the lush fat green stem, the crown
of huge leaves falling over in curves, and below the whorls of green
or golden fruit, with the purple «pike dangling and protruding
below them : and all the product of a few months, for not one lives

more than a year." Lastly we saw the " Scotch lawyer," a huge
climbing and aspiring creeper, who while young attaches himself
to some strong and flourishing tree, and by the increase of his own
growth gradually overpowers that to which he had at the beginning
clung for support, and then with vigorous pertinacity increases his
power over the poor thing until he overwhelms its independence,
and at the end flourishes over the ruins of his former support.
Just before we started to go down to the pier we heard the sound
of the rain coming from the distance ; you can hear it beating on
the leaves of the trees on the hillside a long way ofif, until, as it
gradually comes nearer and nearer, it sounds literally just like the

G 2

84 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

roar of a torrent. We drove down to the jetty and caught the
six o'clock oflScers' boat oflF to the ship. So ended our visit to Sir
Henry Irving. He has been very kind to us, and we have learnt
much from him whilst staying this week ashore in his cool and airy
house. This evening Captain Lord Charles Scott and the officers
gave a dinner to the officers of the 4th Regiment.

January \%th we spent quietly on board, and there were the usual
services. In the afternoon we were reading and writing, and at
night turned in early.

Jan, \Wi, — All the forenoon was spent in preparing the upper
deck for an afternoon dance. The awnings were spread and lined
inside with the foreign ensigns, which are long enough to hang
down over the hammock nettings. Many flowers were sent off by
Mr. Prestoe for decoration, and with them the brake of the poop
and the rails round the hatchways were covered. All was com-
pleted by 1 P.M. and looked very pretty, but the rain threatened
to spoil it. However at 3 P.M. the Governor and his aide-de-camp,
the colonial secretary, Mr. Sendall, and others came off There were
over two hundred guests in all, for whose convenience one large
steamer was chartered, and brought them all off together across
the three miles that lay between us and the jetty ; she came along-
side the Bacchante so that they could all walk on board. They
continued dancing till 6 P.M. Smoking was at the after end of the
poop behind a screen of flags : ices were served in the chart house,
drinks and light refreshments under the poop. There was a good
deal of cheering as the steamer left with the guests for the shore,
some of whom hoped the island would not be forgotten * because
it was so far from its great mother, but that we would sometimes
think of them and help them along/

Jan, 20^A. — At 10 A.M. weighed and proceeded southwards down
the bay under steam, having previously embarked Sir Henry
Irving, and suite. The eastern shore of the Gulf of Paria
is flat and mangrove-covered, broken only at one point by the
conical hill of San Fernando, which we passed, and arrived at
La Brea some thirty-six miles south, still in the Gulf of Paria, at
1.30 P.M., where we anchored in five fathoms. We landed in the
steam pinnace on the black-pitch beach and walked up to the Pitch
Lake> rather more than a mile and about 138 feet above the sea.
The road is black with pitch, but there is much vegetation on either
side, and negro huts and gardens full of flowers, white and yellow
and purple. The pine-apples of La Brea are famous ; the heat of

1880. TRINIDAD-PITCH LAKR 85

the soil and of the air brings them to perfection. Some few rode on
ponies and others drove up in two-wheeled carts, in each of which
four chairs were arranged ; but the jolting was found by those who
indulged in a drive to be too provocative at first of laughter and
then of wrath. Arrived at the lake, the effect was like a large
marsh (it covers ninety-nine acres and is about half a mile in
diameter) of black mud hardened on the surface, but with
many pools and with lines of stagnant water stretching here
and there glistening in the sun, while the borders are all
surrounded, except on the further side inland which is forest, by
dwarf trees, of which also there are a few on small islands here and
there in the marsh. Leave had been given to the petty officers of
the ship, who nearly all had availed themselves of it. Some of them
on arriving at once took off their shoes and stockings to wade across
the shallow-looking water ; this however covers faults in the pitch
in many places and hence you have to go very cautiously or else you
are tripped up in a hole, which fate befell more than one of the blue
jackets, and the unexpected duckings that ensued as they went
incautiously rolling over into the mess contributed to their amuse-
ment though not to the neatness of their clothes. But strange
to say the pitch itself does not soil. It is so full of earthy matter
that it can be scraped up and moulded into any shape of lump
you like. George came down with his pony in the midst of
one such trap. The more wary of the party availed themselves
of the help of long boards with which knowing and stalwart negroes
bridged these dangerous passages and guided their steps to the
centre of the lake where the pitch is soft ; in some parts not more
80 than asphalte pavement on a sunny day, but in others regularly
bubbling and oozing up with an evil smell as of petroleum and
sulphuretted hydrogen at once. The pitch sells at about 1/. a ton ; in
one year nearly 40,000 tons were exported. Excavations from which
many tons have been broken up for exportation are filled up again
in the course of a few weeks by the gradual closing in of the sides
and bottom. In the centre of the area the pitch is constantly rising
up erb masse, not breaking out in streams. It is stiU boiling with
an indefinitely slow motion.

It is supposed that " buried vegetable matter, which would have
become peat and finally brown coal in a temperate climate, becomes
under the hot tropic soil asphalte and oil, continually oozing up
beneath the pressure of the strata above it. Throughout the
neighbourhood the ground is full to the depth of hundreds of feet

86 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

of coaly and asphaltic matter. Layers of sandstone or of shale
containing this decayed vegetable alternate with layers that contain
none. And if, as seems probable, the coaly matter is continually
changing into asphalte and oil, and then working its way upwai-d
through every crack and pore to escape from the enormous pres-
sure of the superincumbent soil, it must needs carry up with
it innumerable particles of the soil through which it passes."

Walked down to the landing-place again, and got off to the steam
pinnace in some old rattle-trap shore-boats, and so on board. At
5 P.M. weighed and steamed back from La Brea to San Fernando,
where, at 6.30 p.m., came to in five fathoms. The heat on board
to-night, sleeping in grass hammocks slung under the poop, was
more oppressive than anything we have yet experienced.

Jan, 2l8t. — Left the ship at 9.30 A.M. in the Arthur (Tumbull's
steamer), which has been placed at our disposal, and landed at
the pier of San Fernando a large party of officers from the ship ;
drove up through the town, which was all alive with negroes and
coolies, men, women, and children, animals, and green decorations,
to the tramway station. Up the hill thither many of the
negroes and coolies ran after and alongside the carriage in which
were the Governor and ourselves, and cheered us all enthusi-
astically and indiscriminately. One coolie woman, when unable
any longer to keep up with us, fell behind most regretfully, and,
prompted by the sudden impulse of offering something, took off
the silver bangle she was wearing and threw it into the carriage.
It made a very good ornament to a walking-stick. Another old
negro, white-headed, came running with a curious knobbed stick
which he had had fifty years, and wished it to be taken to England
in his memory. It was so, and, " given to the Queen," is now
stowed in the Swiss Cottage with other curiosities at Osborne.

We got into two railway trucks with covered roofs to shade us from
the sun, and planks arranged crossways for seats, attached to two
engines. We proceeded slowly and deliberately on our way, until
at a little distance from the town the first truck left the metals, the
consequence of which was that every one embraced his neighbour
and wondered for the moment what had happened. By the help
of screwjacks, &c., after three-quarters of an hour's delay, the truck
was hoisted on to the line again, and on we went along a rough and
rather shaky line over a rolling and hummocky country covered with
cane for the most part, but broken here and there by watercourses,
up to the usine of St, Madeleine, to which we were carefully piloted

1880. USINE AT SAN FERNANDO. 87

by Mr. Slade, the superintendent of the works. This line waa
never intended for passenger traflSc, but only for conveying the
canes to the mill and the sugar to the shore. Mr. Fenwick showed
us all over the sugar works, and explained the whole process.
Throughout the West Indies the planter is usually not merely a
sugar grower but a sugar maker also. But it is impossible to
attend to two things successfully at once, the fields and the engine-
house. This factory has been established in order to take the sugar
making entirely off the planter's hands We saw the cane
first drawn into the mill, then crushed, and the refuse taken
straight to the furnace while the juice is pumped up to the
top of the two-storied building. Thence it falls into vats and
is boiled eight times over, and then allowed to run through
charcoal filters, which operation is twice repeated and the
refuse is then run off for molasses. The filtered juice is then
passed on through vacuum pans in which we saw it simmering,
and at last it granulates, and is then passed through turbines
where it is winnowed into the finest brown sugar. The usine at
St. Madeleine cost, with the railways, reservoirs, &c., in connection
with it, about 240,000Z. sterling, and is capable of making (when
the new mill, which Eddy christened to-day, is at work) from
forty-five to fifty tons of sugar per diem. Last year the average
output was thirty-five tons per day, and for the whole crop 4,280
tons. There was at that time only one mill, driven at a speed of
two revolutions per minute by an engine running at thirty revolu-
tions, and indicating 140 horse-power. There are ten boilers of
120 lbs. each, the steam from which is used for driving not only the
mill but the rest of the engines in connection with the water
arrangements, for condensing the steam coming from the vacuum
pans, for the vacuum pan engines themselves, for the engine which
drives the centrifugals, and for the distilling engines. The con-
sumption of coal is about thirty-five hundredweight a day, beside
which there is burnt in the boilers about 160 hundredweight of
crushed cane as it comes from the mill per day. There are about
twenty miles of tramway in connection with it branching off into
the plantations, and it takes five locomotives and eighty trucks to
bring in the canes, which are weighed on their arrival and paid for
to the estates supplying them, according to the price of sugar at
the time. The number of men employed is about 300. There are
two of Siemens's electric lights of 1,400 candle power for lighting
up the railway-yard, &c. The time it takes from the canes being

88 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

crashed to the sugar being turned out and fit for use is about
twenty-four hours on an average, but occasionally it is made in
much less time. These particulars were given us by Mr. John
Slade on the spot.

We lunched at the house above the mill, in front of which there
was a large traveller s palm growing, several of the great cabbage-like
stalks of which we cut, and out came spirts of living water.
But care must be taken to be sure you get the right plant, for
lately in British Guiana an inexperienced traveller having, as is the
custom in tropical countries, taken a draught from the stem of one
of the water-holding plants which grow in the forests, afterwards
drank a " nip " of rum. Shortly afterwards he died in great agony,
and a post-mortem examination showed that his internal organs
were literally sealed up with india-rubber. He had drunk the sap
of the Mimusops balata, the juice of which coagulates and hardens
in alcohol, and the rum had its usual effect in the man's stomach
with necessarily fatal results.

Then got on to the trucks again and were run up five miles further
to the mission village of Monkey Town (which consists of two broad
streets of stores and cottages), and is to be called from this
day forward Princes Town. Here we planted two trees by the side
of the church, and then mounted ponies and rode to the mud
volcanoes. The road for the first half of the distance is in very fair
condition, but on turning off we got upon the muddiest road we
ever saw, in parts of which our ponies plunged right up to their
girths and in others went sliding down the sides of the hill. The
narrow path went winding through the tropic wood with ferns and
orchids and trailing creepers on all sides, dark with thickest shade
and stifling with moistest heat, and more than one huge fallen log lay
right across the track. At length we arrived where there was a
space of about two or three acres of clearance in the wood, of
brown yellow against the forest greenness that rings it round, and
there the hillocks of finest grey mud were, each being four and six
feet high and reeking with a smell of sulphuretted hydrogen. In
dry weather they are more active than they are to-day, spirting up
their contents several feet, but now they seem to be pretty still ;
anyhow they are worth seeing, though, most of us are drenched
through and through. Alone it must be an uncanny sort of place
to visit, " too much jumbies here." " De debbil he come out here
and walk about," said the negro guide ; but to-day the cheerful noise
of midshipmen's voices hallooing broke the stillness of the haunted

1880. SAN FERNANDO. 89

ground and drove all dark-dreams of evil far away ; and the old
gentleman was probably occupied on his walks in thickly-populated
towns, where, for the most part, he seems to find more congenia
occupation for his wits nowadays than in lone forest depths.

Thence we rode back up through the wood again and on to the
open road, where there was some beautiful scenery, to Mr. Darling's
(the " old squire's "), whose house is, with its elaborate wood-work,
so well described in At Last, to luncheon ; after which saw his well-
cared-for coolies, all dressed alike, what little dress there is, per-
forming their native sword exercise and doing tumbling and other
acrobatic feats on the lawn ; but soon had to leave and hurry back
to Princes Town in order that we might get down to San Fernando
before dark. Again upon the trolly, we went along very cautiously
as the line waa somewhat out of repair, getting out and walking
over the wooden bridges tfTi route in order to ease the weight of the
trucks, and in one place especially where one side of the bridge had
already given a couple of feet through the efifect of our morning's
crossing.

On arrival at San Fernando found the whole place illuminated
and went down to the jetty to get on board the Arthur, through
two rows of men with torches ; and so oflF to the Bacchante in the
same way as we had been brought ashore in the morning.

Jan, 22nd, — Mr. Marryatt (the mayor) came off to say good-
bye, and at 10 A.M., we got under way, left San Fernando and
steamed back to Port of Spain. At 3 p.m. bade farewell to all our
visitors in the pouring rain. They went ashore in the steam launch,
which brought off our mails, and we saluted the flag of his excel-
lency the Governor with seventeen guns, and then steamed out of
the Gulf of Paria through the Boca des Huevos in a drizzle. We
notice, as we pass, Chaquaramus harbour, which, when the line of
tram has been laid from Port of Spain, will probably be some day the
chief port of the island, as ships of any burden can lie close along-
side the shore instead of miles out as at Port of Spain. This was
our last look at Trinidad, as the evening fell, where we have spent
a most pleasant time, full of reminiscences of the courtesy, hospi-
tality, and kindliness, alike of the governor and of the planters and
official and professional gentlemen we have met. We long now
for a little quiet at sea. The tumble of the surf, the rush of the
fresh trade wind, the heaving of the swell, and the difierence in
the temperature when we are outside, tell us that another stage of
our cruise is -past and that the Gulf of Paria has been changed for

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1880.

the broad Caribbean Sea. By the last mail the news arrived that
Surgeon Delmege was promoted to be Stafif-surgeon in Her
Majesty's fleet. We were both weighed and measured to-day.
Eddy weighs 115 lbs., and is 5 feet 5J inch in height. He has
increased seven pounds in weight within the last two months and
grown nearly an inch since leaving England. George only weighs

TRINIDAD TO GRENADA, GRENADINES AND ST. VINCENT.

88 lbs., and is 4 feet lOf inch high. Thanks to gymnastics his arm
is nearly as thick as his brother's. He is nearly an inch taller than
the Duke of Edinburgh was at the same age in 1858.

Jan. 2Srd. — After steaming due north all night, made sail to
topgallant sails at 7.30 A.M. to a good brisk north-east "trade " — a
delightful change from the mugginess of the gulf. The next day
sailed northwards till abreast of St. Lucia: bright sunny day and

1880.

TRINIDAD TO GRENADA.

the beautiful wind from the north-east dry and cheering. At 2
P.M. wore ship, and while sailing south-east, at 4 p.m., passed on
our starboard hand a Danish corvette standing to the north-west ;
could not make out her name as we had no code with a list of the
Danish men-of-war. We made our number to her, and she at once
wore and began to follow us. She made no signal, so we continued
to keep on our way. Ultimately, when she found she could not over-
take us she tacked again, and stood away to the north-west. She
was the Dagmar. Prince Waldemar, the brother of the Princess

TRINIDAD TO GRENADA, GRENADINES AND ST. VINCENT.

Date.

From Prstious Noon.

At Nook.

Tkmperatuhb.

Course.

Distance.

Wind.

ut.

Long.

Sea.

Air.

Sail.

Steam.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Jan.

...

N.E. 1-4

...

N. 17W.

N.E. 6-3

n-47

62-6

N. 24W.

148

N.E. 5-6

14-0

63-8

25S.

S, 41 E.

N.E. 4-3

12 59

62-15

...

N.E. 3-4

...

Feb.

IS.

...

E. 1-2

...

N.E. 2-4

...

N.19E.

N.E. 3-6-4

12-40

61-40

...

N.E. 4 -7 -5

• ••

...

N.E. 7-6

...

N.JW.

N.E. 6-7

12-41

61-28

N.N.E.

35
19

N.E. 7

13-11

6110

^468

Total distaix

36... 531 mile

.8.

of Wales, was a lieutenant on board and oflScer of the watch at the
time. During all Sunday we were sailing smoothly over summer
seas as blue as a sapphire, a few clouds flecking the sky, beneath a
light cool wind. In the evening Grenada was forty-three miles
ahead to the south-east. We have made a long leg to the north
during the last three days beating up for this island against the
trade wind. It is really only ninety-five miles distant from the
coast of Trinidad.

Jan. 26^A. — At 2 A.M. observed land ahead and on the port bow,
and at 3 A.M. tacked, and at 7.30 A.M. tacked again. Before break-

92 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

fast we were sailing along under the west coast of Grenada, which
is hilly, wooded, and peaked. Saw St. Catherine's Peak, which is
the highest in the island, and at 11.20 A.M. came to in eight
fathoms off Fort George. The bay's entrance, away to our right, is
some two hundred yards across. On its right or southern side
rises a cliff of reddish brown volcanic sand. To the left of this
bay rises the headland of rocks of hard lava crowned with the old
fort off which we lie. Inside the bay, away at its southern end, is
an inner bay or circular lake a quarter of a mile across and forty
feet deep, separated from the outer by a coral reef. It is probably
the mouth of an old crater. It is said the old French town stood
on its lip, but was swallowed up or washed away. From our
anchorage we can see the town of St. George with its red-brick
houses, away to the left among cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees,
and a broad street running up the hill side, and the two churches
with their towers, one a Roman Catholic and the other an English
church. On the headland itself which separates the two bays, and
off which we lie, are the remains of the old Fort George and
barracks, now utilised for a police station since the British troops
have been withdrawn from the islands. There is another group
of barracks on the hill-top behind the town (the Richmond heights),
in an old fort 800 feet above the harbour ; they are utilised for a
prison ; and yet a third, to the south-east, left vacant in the same
way, is now used as a central lunatic asylum for all the four islands
of this Windward group.

Captain Maling, colonial secretary, came off. Landed at 1.30
P.M., at the wharf alongside which steamers can load, and were
driven up by Mr. Engledow, private secretary, to Government
House. Saw Colonel Harley, who told us that Prince Waldemar
had left two days previously in the Dagmar, and Major Strahan
yesterday in H.M.S. Tourmaline. We hear too that H.M.S.
Atalanta left Barbados on the 9th for Tobago, from which
island she sailed northward, and when off St. Kitt's reported two
cases of yellow fever, and one death from the same on the 21st, so
we shall not meet them again.

Government House stands on a knoll 300 feet high, with the
" trade " blowing through it ; and from the terrace outside we had
a fine view up the valley of Tempo on the north-west, and of tier
on tier of wooded hill beyond into the interior. In the garden just
outside the drawing-room window rises the enormous candelabra
cactus, thirty feet high, and by its side a Chapeau chinois bush with

1880.

GRENADA.

saffron-scarlet blossoms, round which the hummiDg-birds arc
flitting.

This island, which is rather smaller than Barbados, was dis-
covered by Columbus in his third voyage in 1498, and called by
him Ascension. The Spaniards never occupied it. In 1627 the
English took possession ; the Caribs were the principal inhabitants
tiU 1651, when the French made a descent on the island from
Martinique and exterminated them, but did no more. They came
again in 1779, but since 1783 the English have held it in peace.
The island is divided into six parishes, four of them named after
the national patron saints, St. George, St. Patrick, St. Andrew,
and St. David. They contain about forty-two thousand souls in
all. The average revenue of all four islands of the Windward group
(Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Tobago), is about 18«. per head
of the inhabitants. Half of it is raised on imports, the rest as
excise, or from stamps. Each island however has a different tariff;
and each a separate legislative body, consisting of not fewer than
three members nominated by the crown. Surely one local parlia-
ment would be a liberal allowance for the four islands, which
combined only equal in extent an average English county ; and
they might assimilate their tariff. The chief expenditure of the
Government is on roads, public works, education and negro hospitals.
There is concurrent endowment of the religious bodies, in three
out of the four islands — in St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Tobago, but
not in Grenada.

AT GRENADA.

Datk.

Wind.

Temperatvrk.

Sea.

Air.

Noon.

Op.m.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Jan.

E. 1-8

N.E. 1 2

N.E. 1-3

N.E. 1-2

N.E. 1-8

According to their own account this is the most prosperous of
the Windward group. The cacao plantations have given them
quite a new life. Last year (1878) their revenue exceeded
expenditure by £7,000, which will be laid out in improving the

94 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

roads of the island. These are particularly wanted in this
island, for there are many small estates inland which with improved
means of communication could supply abundant produce for ship-
ment. The tracks called roads are only passable on horseback,
and barely that. The greater portion of the cacao grown in
Grenada is raised on small properties of ten or fifteen acres. When
a cacao estate is well established it costs about 12s. an acre to keep
it up : or an expenditure of 8s. per 100 lbs. of cacao grown.

The next day remained on board writing letters for the mail,
which left at 8 A.M. on Wednesday 28th. Two of the midshipmen,
who went ashore in the afternoon, were taken by the negroes for
us, and followed all about St. George's enthusiastically. On
Wednesday, ship's company bathed overboard, in a sail, morning
and evening. In the afternoon seining party away to the north
along the west coast of the island : they did not return till mid-
night, when they brought on board heaps of fish, a third of which
at least they had to throw away as uneatable. They had drawn
the seine three times on the sandy beach. In the cool of the
evening some of us went up to Government House and played
lawn-tennis. The blacks here seem to be holding high festival ;
they have got their own emperor and empress, generals and admirals,
courtiers and aide-de-camps, all dressed up in the public square,
where they are dancing and frisking about with drums and tom-
toms, apparently all day and all night without any cessation. That
evening Colonel Harley, with his private secretary, the Attorney-
general, and the colonial secretary, came ofif to dinner. H.M.S.
Northampton, Captain J, Fisher, bearing the flag of Vice-admiral
Sir Leopold McClintock, anchored at Barbados.

Jan, 29ih, — Bathed overboard in a sail, after gymnastics and
drill. In school all the forenoon, at which notice of the English
essays which we have to write was given out. Every midshipman
is to write three during the cruise and send them in to the captain
at fixed dates. He will give a prize for the best description of the
places the Bacchante visits. At noon we landed, a party of seventeen
oflBcers, at the quay, where we mounted on steeds and rode through
the town — its streets are paved with small pebbles — and through
the market-place, where the " Beseda Company " of blacks were
dressed up in as many colours as dress will admit of, and as many
ornaments as they can carry, and still performing. They carry a
large flag or long banner, its ends borne aloft, fastened to poles.
Grinning and shouting, the men and women sway about in the dance,

1880. GRENADA. 95

and the old men sit on the ground beating time on a couple of
tom-toms, or native drums. Outside the town the road skirts the
bay and then turns to the right inland, alongside the stream, in
which many washerwomen were pounding clothes; it then gradually
mounts the hills and leads on through the woods, in which, as at
Trinidad, giant bamboo canes and palms and creepers are most
conspicuous.

At one place we halt to get a cool drink from fresh cocoa-nuts.
The negro walked, not climbed, up the stem like a four-footed
animal, his arms and legs straight, his feet pressed flat against it, his
hands clinging round it, and tossed down the green nuts, from which
others with two or three blows of a cutlass cut oflf the point of the
nut. We each had a drink as we sat in the saddle, and anything
more refreshing in the heat it is impossible to imagine. Then
on through cacao plantations ; the finest of these belonging to Mr.
Freeling. This mountain-path leads away to Granville on the
eastern side of the island. Alongside the road, out from George-
town, are iron milestones from Glasgow, which have an odd appear-
ance. We are climbing the backbone of the island, and from the
top, through the woods, can trace the bays on both sides. When
at Grand Etang, seven miles from St. George and 1,740 feet above
the sea, we are on the weather side, and can see the breakers rolling
in before the trade-wind on the eastern shore. All the last part
of the way the path has had to be cut through the jungle for to-
day's picnic, which is given by the Attorney-general, who has had
also a pretty sort of al fresco hall erected of bamboo and palm-
leaves, for the lunch, at which crayfish, from the mountain-stream
close by, and the black pine-apples from Antigua were new to us
and very good. Then walked down to the little lake or pond, to
which a road had been cut through the jungle, and round which
enormous bamboos and tree-ferns are growing. A boat had
been started upon it, into which, from a stage, some of the party
got and paddled about, though the water is more or less covered
with weed. It is said in parts to be sixteen feet deep, and is the
crater of what was once, evidently, a volcano. Rode back in the
cool of the evening.

Jan, 30^A.— Overboard for more than half an hour this morning
bathing. The sea is deliciously pure, such a contrast to that at
Trinidad. This evening, at 6.20 P.M., George Knight, stoker, aged
twenty-nine, died, and the next morning (31st) we landed at
7 A.M. for his funeral, which was in the cemetery to the north

96 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

of the town — a pretty spot on a rocky slope between the road and
the sandy beach, and overshadowed with palm and other trees. In
the early morning the humming-birds were flitting about ; the Dead
March played by the band, and the three volleys fired over his grave
echoed strangely in the stillness. Returned on board to breakfast,
and found the mail-steamer Tiber had arrived from England with
Sub-lieutenant Wolfe Murray on board and many letters for us.
In the afternoon there was a cricket-match between the officers
of the ship and the Grenada cricket club. We were well put
through ; Grenada club : first innings, 57 ; second innings, 32 ;
Bacchante : first innings, 21 ; second innings, 43.

GRENADA TO CARIACOU.

Feb. 27W?. — At 6 a.m. the mail steamer Essequibo arrived from
Barbados, having Mr. Fleming on board. After bathing and
breakfast prepared for sea. We and the mids. went to school as
usual every morning. At 2.30 P.M. weighed and made plain sail
shaping course to the northward. This weather is perfection,
there is a delicious breeze always blowing, and yet it is warm in
the sun. It is a great pity that the larger landowners in these
West Indian Islands do not run out for two or three months in the
winter and superintend, or see to, the management of their estates.
Communication with England, both by mail and telegraph, is now
easy, and residence here during the winter months in a charming
climate, and amid the loveliest scenery in the world, would afford a
pleasing variety to home life; they would enjoy it and be the
richer for it too. Two estates a couple of miles from the port of
Grenville on the other side of the island, and in the parish of
St. Andrew, consisting of 1,053 acres, have just sold in London for
a little over 51, an acre. Most was in cane cultivation, only forty
acres were planted in cacao. But other estates have been sold in
Chancery lately, two of which averaged over 70Z. an acre. The
best land for cacao in Grenada is selling for 20/. an acre, and a
great deal of it is bought by the agents of the non-resident land-
owners ; the delusion that prevails in England that West Indian
property is worth nothing is not shared by those on the spot,
neither are the rents transmitted home always an infallible index
of the real worth of the property. In a neighbouring island one
firm of agents have bought up twenty-two estates or two-thirds of
the island, and will allow nothing but sugar to be grown. The
old notions that prevailed when sugar-cane was almost the only

1880. GRENADINES-CABIACOU. 97

commodity grown, of getting as much as possible out of the island
and grudging every penny spent in it, is here as elsewhere a very
penny- wise-and-pound-foolish policy ; although it will nevertheless
always commend itself to persons of a certain class of mind. But
for English gentlemen who have care or mind to see their own
property administered on more sensible principles there is a
splendid opening, and they might raise the negro by judicious
handling, while now, on the contrary, in too many cases, he and
their acres are going from bad to worse ; and the prevailing im-
pression left upon many who visit the West Indies is that of having
seen glorious opportunities thrown away, and decay, ruin, and
debauchery rampant. Large areas of the islands are held nominally
by absentee or unknown proprietors who have abandoned their
estates ; on these the negroes squat, burn down trees, stick in a
few plantains or bananas, just enough to satisfy their daily wants,
and then thieve from cacao plantations, which are particularly
liable to this sort of depredation, and otherwise relapse into a
semi-savage state, to the injury of the whole community.

Feb, 3rrf. — At 4.15 A.M, wore; daylight at 6 A.M.; the south
part of St. Vincent was then visible to the north-east and also St.
Lucia, but this last further away. After tacking two or three times
in the afternoon, we came to an anchor in fifteen fathoms at 6 P.M.
oflf Cariacou, one of the Grenadines. From the anchorage Grenada
is still visible to the south outside the picturesque outline of the
hilly tops of this island, some of which are wooded and others
bare, and all rather grey than green. The outlying little rocky
islands which we see stretching on all sidiss look curious, and the
shoals are of such formation that each has evidently in its centre
the crater of a small but of course extinct volcano.

Feb. ith, — We mids. were at school all the forenoon, and after
quarters exercised landing parties. During the afternoon a party
of a dozen oflScers had a pony ride over the island ; Mr. Mills, the
old patriarch of the place, pioneered us. The Roman Catholic
priest, and the Church of England clergyman, with many negroes,
received us on the beach. We had a good scamper over the
grass-grown roads and along the shore on the windward side of the
island, where there was much cotton growing, and a substantial old
house with bow windows, once a charming residence, but now in
ruins, belonging to Admiral Tarleton. All came oflf before dusk.
The captain and his nephew were away in the galley, and shot an
iguana on one of the outlying rocks, which they cooked and ate.

VOL. I. H

ga CBJJISE OF RM.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

CARIACOU TO UNION ISLAND.

Feb. Sth.—At 7.30 A.M. made sail, weighed, casting to port, and
shaped course north-quarter-west ; fine morning hut squally, force
of the wind six to seven, this carried us along the same numher of
knots. At 10 A.M. tacked in order to fetch up to Chatham Bay,
Union Island, another of the Grenadines, with far loftier cliffs and
more wood-clad than Carriacou, where we anchored in nineteen
fathoms at 11.30 A.M. These islands of grey and red rock resemhle
the Cyclades of the Grecian Archipelego, or the islets in the Inland
sea of Japan. Their number is 300 ; the largest contains 8,000
acres, the smallest 600. Stock are fed and exported and provisions
grown in most of them. At 2 P.M. gave special leave to the port
watch, who all landed for a large seining party, as did also a few
of the officers ; they found Mr. Muhlsack on the beach on a white
horse to show them where to cast the seine ; they had very good
sport and returned on board before it was dark, having lighted a
fire on the beach (after killing a great black and white snake five
feet long, while gathering wood) and then and there cooked and ate
a large number of the fish. The whole of this island belongs to
one proprietor, who is non-resident, in London. It is very squally
this evening. The captain went away and shot another iguana.

UNION ISLAND TO ST. VINCENT.

Feb. 6th. — At 10 a.m. weighed and made sail to single-reefed
top-sails and top-gallant sails, course about north-west. At 2 P.M.
tacked heading up to south-east, and again, at 5 P.M., laying up to
north-half- west, very pleasant and jolly. Began our first essay on
Barbados and Trinidad.

Feb. 7th. — At 4.20 a.m. wore, and at 9.15 shaped course south-
east, as we have run to the northward of St. Vincent during the
night. All the forenoon we are sailing back south along its
western shore, off which was borne to us a strong sulphur smell.
The doctor said at first he was sure this proceeded only from the
emptying of the heads, but, as it lasted for two or three hours,
he afterwards allowed it must be from the SoufrUre, although
there was no smoke visible. This island has a more peaked
appearance than any other we have seen; all the lower peaks
are wooded and evidently volcanic. We could not fetch up into
Kingstown Bay under sail, so at 4 p.m. tacked, and at 5.30 down

1880.

ST. VINCENT.

screw, shortened and furled sails, and at 6.15 p.m. commenced
steaming, and came to in twenty-three fathoms at 7.15 p.m., after it
was dark.

AT ST. VINCENT.

Date.

Wind.

Teuperatube.

Sea.

...

Noon.

«P.M.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Feb.

8S.

N.E. 2-5

N.E. 6-3

N.K. 4-3

N.E. 6-4

Feb, Sth. — Church this morning under the awnings on the
quarter-deck, after which Archdeacon Laborde called and young
Mr. Cowie. At 8 P.M. mail steamer Tiber left with mails for
England.

Feb. 9th. — Employed scraping masts and booms and refitting upper
yards. We have heard that the admiral is coming up the islands
on his way to Jamaica, and as we have not yet been inspected since
we joined his command, every one seems to think it likely that he
may overtake us any day and catch us " on the ground hop." At
2 P.M. four of us landed, and having been met by Mr. Cowie on the
pier, rode out by Bolton Tower to his house at Belvidere. The
road first climbed the hills behind the town and then wound down
to the south coast of the island, from which pretty views of the
Grenadines, Bequia and the rest constantly presented themselves.
After passing under a long and lofty grove of palm trees, that
reminded us of that at Codrington College at Barbados, " their tall
immovable pillar stems looking the more immovable beneath the
toss and flicker of the long leaves as they wake out of their
sunlit sleep and rage impatiently for a while before the mountain
gusts and fall asleep again," we came down to the beach by the
curious little island of Douverette in the offing, with its steep
rocky sides and little hut on the top amid its greenery, where a
captain in the 10th Hussars selected to live happily alone for a con-
siderable period, and which now is sometimes used as a lazaretto;
so on through fields of sugar-cane to Mr. Cowie's bachelor diggings ;
a neat, roomy, one-storied wooden house, on stilts as usual, and
full of knick-knacks made by his mother and sisters. Here in

II 2

100 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

the sitting-room had some most refreshing iced drinks, and
enjoyed the nice breeze that was blowing through the house on
this the windward side of the island. Then to the monument to
his father s memory amid the sugar-canes ; and into the miU-yard,
and so back on to the road to Kingstown, from which, however,
we turned oflf to the right and so went up Dorsetshire Hill, at top
of which there are remains of an old fort now dismantled and used
as a school It commands as from the summit of a natural
amphitheatre a sweeping view over the whole of the bay below and
of Kingstown, with its parallel streets stretching at our feet, and of
the two branches of lower hiUs which embrace it in on either side.
Down to the 6 o'clock officers' boat after a most enjoyable ride.
In the evening we landed again and went up to Government House
to a dance, which poor Mr. Dundas (the lieutenant-governor), who
is in very ill-health, gave. He got up on purpose to welcome us,
but soon afterwai'ds retired to bed leaving Mrs. Dundas to do the
honours. The house is entirely of wood, and one of the most
prettily situated in the West Indies, among its groves of nutmeg
and palm trees, but in rather a dilapidated condition. A new one is
about to be built. The garden is the first botanical one established
in the West Indies. This is the last dance we shall have in the
West Indies, as Lent begins in two days' time.

Feb, 10th, — A cricket match was played to-day between the
Bacchante and the St. Vincent club, in which, as usual, we were
thoroughly beaten — Bacchante, sixty-eight; St Vincen^t, eightj-foui.
At 2.30 P.M. we landed with three shipmates and went for a ride
with Archdeacon Laborde, who is one of the oldest inhabitants of
the island. We went through the town and had a look at the
cricket match ; the ground was very sloppy, as much rain had
fallen. The negroes were very enthusiastic. We then rode along
the leeward, or western side of the island, to Buccament Valley,
leaving away on the left hand another dismantled old fort, on a
promontory jutting out into the sea. This is the best time of day
for this ride, as the sun is getting low and lights up all the tropic
verdure on the hill-sides. The gru-grus and other palms, a shrub
with a scent like sweetbriar, many trailing creepers hanging in
festoons and blossoms from the trees aloft, half hid the dark-brown
rocks and peaks which border the road, until you come out into the
wide sweep of the sugar-cane fields in the valley itself. Here, as
the afternoon was drawing in and the steeds were rather done,
owing to the heaviness of the road and the heavy weights they had

1880. ST. VINCENT. 101

to carry, we turned back and arrived at the pier just in time to get
off to the ship by the six o'clock boat. We cannot help being much
struck with the signs of former prosperity which this island, as well
as Grenada, presents: the road, most part of the way this afternoon,
had once been paved with stones and kept in decent repair ; it
is now overgrown with weeds and left entirely to itself. The
mere fSeict of the withdrawal of the English troops, though it was
a necessary saving to the exchequer at home, has certainly not
improved the islands, for on all hands we see signs of what they
were once, but are no longer ; for the presance of several hundred
European troops in each of these towns used to render their
trade much more brisk than it is now. There are about 28,000
negroes in this island, a couple of thousand whites, and the same
number of coolies. There is a large area of unprotected crown
land in St. Vincent, which encourages large numbers of negroes
and bad characters to squat and lead noxious idle lives.

Feb, Wih, — Landed at 9.30 A.M., with the Commander, Roxby,
Burrows, and Murray, and rode right across the centre of the
island, going first up by Bellair into the Mariaqua valley apd over
the summit ; here we had a lovely view of the distant islands away
to the south, as well as of the uplands iji the centre of the island,
their valleys and rolhng hills all of course feathered over with
verdure. We rode on to Nutmeg Grove, and there went oyer the
arrowroot works, where we saw the roots being ground in the miJJ,
the sediment that remains after repeated washings when dried is
called "arrowroot." We lunched there, outside the shed. This little
estate was bought for £300, and the first year it yielded £700, and has
been yielding the same each year ever since ; it is the propinquity
of the running water which renders it so valuable for arrowroot. A
negro's wages in St, Vincent are 4s. 2rf. per week of five days ; be
can live easily on 1«. per week, getting his own bread-fruit, and
fish, and with this he is content. The average amount of salt
fish now obtained by him does not exceed twelve ounces per week.
In 1832, before the emancipation, every field negro in St. Vincent
had two pounds of excellent salt fish served out weekly, and head
people had four pounds. A pound and a half was allowed for every
child. Every negro could save £30 per year. Either then there was
much waste of food in the slavery days, or else the present negro
is underfed. The captain overtook us after luncheon, riding with
the archdeacon. We went with them to the top of a hill above
the Nutmeg Grove, where there was a clump of old trees and what

102 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

looks like the remains of a large English garden, with shrubs and
flowers all run wild ; this would make a fine site for a house, and
commands a view each way across the island to the east and the
west. We then came down and went through the Yambon Pass,
which is the best thing we have seen of the kind out of Switzer-
land. At its head stands a little church, much dilapidated, by the
side of the stream, which, running on from here down the Pass to
the sea, soon becomes a torrent, high above which the narrow road
winds on the almost precipitous sides of the valley. Biding along
we get here and there a peep through the tropic vegetation, of the
river roaring at its foot, and as the valley turns and winds a glance
upward or downward, until we come out at last at its mouth on
to level grassy downs, where brown cattle are reposing in the
sunlight on the grean, while in the background the blue Atlantic is
rolling in with a thunderous beating on the rocks. This spot is
called " Escape " and the estate is called Argyll, and belongs to the
Due de Polignac, who draws about £2,000 per annum from it. We
cantered across this open space, which seemed almost like a piece
of England, and so up winding roads to Belvidere, and by Calliaqua
to Kingstown, where we just caught the six o'clock oflScers' boat off
to the ship. Some of these had had good sport with the mountain-
mullet, which rose freely to the ordinary English trout flies ; they
took the hook also when baited with grasshoppers or the Devon
minnow ; the water was very clear in the stream close to the town
and up behind it ; each rod took four dozen or so in the afternoon.
Feb. 12th, — Weighed at 7 A.M., and at 8.30 A.M. proceeded under
steam, to Chateau Bellair and Wallabon. Though it is a pouring
wet morning the archdeacon came on board to say good-bye before
we started ; it continued raining hard till noon, during which time
we were steaming north along the west side of the island. We lay
to off Chateau Bellair, and landed the picnic party, who proceeded
perseveringly to try and reach the summit of the SoufrHre
between 3,000 and 4,000 feet high. Those who did this were well
repayed for their pains when they looked down into the twin-
crater cauldrons, and saw the sulphurous steam pouring up and
mingling with the mist caused by the trade-wind as it touched the
summit of the mountain, and then both together came swaying
this way and that way towards them as they stood for a short time
on the edge of the crater, so that they were glad to beat a hasty
retreat along the knife-edge of rock, 700 feet in height, and look
down on the other side upon the dark mountain tarn, with walls of

1880.

ST. YI^CE^T,—S0UFRT£!RE.

103

rock 800 feet in height — ^a clear mirror in an emerald green frame —
which now occupies what was a former crater about two miles in
circumference. The sides of this old vent hole are now clothed
with foliage instead of fire. A plentiful lunch had been liberally

ST. VINCENT TO ST. LUCIA, TO BARBADOS, TO MARTINIQUE,
TO DOMINICA.

DiLTB.

Fbou Previous Noon.

At Noon.

Temperaturb.

DiRtance.

Wind.

Lat.

Long.

Sea.

Air.

Ooiirse.

Sail.

Steam

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.

0 P.M.

Feb.

S.E. 3

...

N. 14 E.

N.E. 2-7

18-67

61-17

...

N.E. 6-5

...

N.E. 5-6

...

N.45W.

126

...

Variable 8'1

14-30

61-10

...

N. 3 0

...

N. 24 W.

85
5

...

Calm

^190

184^

Total distance .. 874 miles.

supplied and sent forward from Kingstown ; but the aTrangements
of the day having been broken up by reason of the bad weather,
the champagne and other liquors never reached the top, and on
returning down the hill, groups of negro bearers were found in

104 CRUISE OF H.M,S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

every stage of drunkenness, maudlin or defiant, but all alike parts
of one repulsive pandemonium. Those who went up the Soufridre
got on board the ship by 5.30 P.M. soaked to the skin, but, after
being well dosed with quinine^ no one was one bit the worse. We
saw the remains of the Carib settlement and huts, on the slope of
green above the rugged brown cliffs on the left of the bay. There
are not more than 200 of them. A portion of the island is entirely
reserved for their use by the government; here they live with
a king of their own, thriving as best they may and never going to
law outside their own people, but settling all their disputes amongst
themselves. They live now almost wholly by fishing, and are
peaceable and harmless. They intermarry only amongst themselves,
and live quite apart firom the negroes, firom whom they are readily
distinguishable, as their colour and their features are quite different.
One Carib came off to the ship in his canoe, which was merely a
log of wood roughly scooped out by means of fire and hatchet;
he was asked whether he would fight with a shark in the water,
and he answered that though his fathers did, they had not ''learned
the young ones *' so to do. They used to swim round the shark,
and after diving, rise suddenly and rip it open with a sharp knife
before the beast had time to turn on its pursuer. As soon as the
cutter had brought the officers on board we hoisted her up, and
proceeded, at 6 P.M., under steam, north by east on our course to
St. Lucia.

Feb. ISth.—Ai 6.30 A.M., sighted the island of St Lucia right
ahead. After divisions dropped a target overboard, and fired away
half of our quarterly allowance of shot and shell at it. At 6.15 P.M.
came to in eleven fathoms outside, but not in, Castries Bay. It is
one of the finest harbours in the West Indies, but as we hope to get
away under sail, when we leave, we remain meanwhile pitching in
the swell outside. From the sea St. Lucia appears a longer island
than St. Vincent, but the hills are not so high ; there is one large
flat-headed table-land conspicuous in the centre ; the two tall sugar-
loaves (each 3,000 feet high) of the Pitons were to-day distinguish-
able at its southern end, and Pigeon Island, at its northern end, is
just such another cone. The view firom our anchorage is desolate,
but it is a fine starlight night, though squally. We hear the
admiral is at Grenada following us up.

Feb. 14!th. — In the afternoon we landed and went up on ponies to
the Mome Fortune, 800 feet of steep hill. It was once the chief
fort of the island, where Prince Edward, father of Her Majesty the

1880.

ST. LUCIA.

105

Queen, when Duke of Kent, after a fatiguing march of fourteen
hours, planted the English flag, on the 4th April, 1794 ; the stump
of the stafif is still remaining.

AT ST. LUCIA.

Date.

Wiiro.

Temperaturb.

Sea.

Air.

Noon.

0 P.M.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Feb.

N.E. 6-4

158.

K.E. 8-4

N.E. 6-6

N.E. 4-6

The view over the interior of the island is very lovely ; so much
so that Mr. Kingsley thinks this of all the West Indies "the
most beautiful." " It was this same steep which Sir John Moore
and Sir Ralph Abercromby took, after a month's contest, with
terrible loss of life, in May, 1796, dragging the guns across ravines
and up the acclivities of the mountains and rocks, and then
advanced to attack the works, along a narrow neck of down,
which the French and the negroes had to surrender, with 100 guns
and ail their stores ; the negroes escaped to the bush, murdering
English and French alike ; till Moore, who was nearly caught by
them, had to row for his life to St. Vincent in a six-oared boat, and
thus was saved for the glory of Corunna. The forts are crumbling
now, the barracks empty. To the north and east a wilderness of
mountain peaks, to the west lies the bay, mapped out in sheets of
blue between high promontories, and beyond all is the open sea.
All lying well-nigh as it has been since the making of the world,
waiting for man to come and take possession." There are a great
number of abandoned estates here, and much squatting on them
and stealing from the plantations.

The little town of Castries lies dirty, dilapidated, unwholesome,
a long way up the bay on the port hand. This is the bay that
Rodney, as early as 1778, advised should be made a permanent
naval station with dockyard and fortifications, and a town which
would become a metropolis for the other islands. This and St.
George's at Grenada are the only two ports we have yet seen in
the West Indies where steamers can load and unload alongside
the wharves, elsewhere lighters are employed. St. Lucia, he held

106 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880,

in those days when ships only went by wind, would, from its
position to windward, and its good harbours, render Martinique (the
great French stronghold) and all the other French islands of little
use in war ; while from it every other British island might receive
speedy succour. But nothing was done, neither was his plan for
colonising the island with ten-acre men (white yeomen) listened to,
and so " St. Lucia is hardly to be called a colony, but rather the
nucleus of a colony, which may become hereafter, by energy and good
government, a rich and thickly-peopled garden up to the mountain
tops.'* There are not wanting signs of prosperity and improvement :
cacao and coolies have been introduced. A great central sugar
usine, like that we saw in Trinidad, insuring the most economical
methods of making sugar, has been established by the local
government. It pays six per cent, on its capital, and has given a
great stimulus to the principal industry of the island. When the
Panama Canal is made St. Lucia will increase in importance as a
coaling station, for it lies directly in the line of commerce between
England and the isthmus, along which much of our Pacific and
Australasian trade will pass. There is a good deal of swell here
in the roadstead, and it has been squally and rainy all day.

Feb. \bth. — ^At 6.6 A.M., John Cowley, A.B., fell overboard out
of the port fore rigging, striking the chains and breaking both bones
of his left leg. A cutter was lowered, into which he was got with
diflBculty and brought on board on a grating. This is the first
serious accident that has befallen any of our ship's company.
Divine service morning and evening as usual.

Feb, \Qth. — In the afternoon the captain went away in the steam
pinnace with a party of twelve of us down along the coast to the
Souf'TUre, or remains of an old crater now fallen in, 1,000 feet
above the sea, from which any amount of sulphur might be
obtained, the supply being practically inexhaustible, everything
there is encrusted with it. The boiling springs and jets of steam
were rushing up out of the earth in all directions ; these are about
three miles from the shore and 200 feet above the sea ; we boiled
some eggs in a little pool, and one midshipman burned both his feet
rather badly as the crust gave way. We returned at 7 p.m. Others
went away fishing in the stream for the mountain mullet, and with
the same eflfect as at St. Vincent. There are only about 900 white
inhabitants here, 30,000 negroes, and 2,000 coolies. The exports
of St. Lucia have trebled in thirty years.

The fer de lance, or yellow " rat tail " snake, one of, if not the,

1880, ST. LUCIA. 107

most deadly and venomous snake known, flourishes here and in the
neighbouring French island of Martinique alone, of all the West
Indian islands. Its great enemy is another snake, the cribro, who
swallows his adversary whole.

It abounds in the sugar-cane fields, and lives chiefly on the rats
it there catches; it is, we were told, unsafe to go without the
greatest caution off the beaten track in the sugar fields a yard on
either side. This snake is very prolific, as many as eighty-five
young snakes having been found in one old one. The local govern-
ment four years ago determined to extirpate it and voted to spend
£300 per annum for this purpose, offering a reward of 28. 6d. for
every five heads of the snake produced. They spent £1,200 in
this manner and the death rate from this snake's bite diminished
every year from twenty-two persons, who thus died the first year, to
two who died last year. It was then determined no longer (having
80 far reduced them) to offer any reward at all for their heads, so
that the island will still furnish, probably for some time to come, this
interesting specimen of natural history, though it is to be feared the
death rate will again increase from his bites, and the money
already spent might as well, have been thrown into the sea with
our shot and shell the other day.

Feb. 17th. — Mr. Dix (the treasurer of the island) and a few
others came off to lunch. We are waiting for the mail, and it is
dreary work pitching here, the weather showery and miserable.
We receive telegrams all day periodically, as to when she left
Antigua, when she left St. Kitts, and, lastly, when she might
be expected to arrive at St. Lucia, which is at twelve to-night.
The doctor has been anxious about Cowley's leg, as it looks like
mortifying, and has recommended his being taken to the hos-
pital at Barbados. There was no sign of the mail at midnight ;
we had steam up ready for starting by 1 A.H., but no mail came in
till daylight ; and when she did there were no bags for us after all.

ST. LUCIA TO BARBADOS.
Feb. 18th. — At 8.15 A.M. weighed and proceeded under steam
round the north end of the island, looking into Gros Islet Bay, and
at Gros Islet itself — sometimes called Pigeon Rock — behind which
Rodney's fleet, thirty-six sail of the line, lay waiting at anchor, well
to windward of the French at Martinique, while he himself sat on
the top of the rock, day after day, spy-glass in hand, watching for the
signals from his frigates in the oflBng that the French fleet, 34 ships

108 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 188a

of the line, and sixteen frigates, was on the move. The French
were lurking in the Bay of Port Boyal at Martinique, twenty* four
miles distant until such time as they could sally forth, give Rodney
the slip, and sail away with fair wind up to St. Domingo, and there
eftect a junction with the Spanish fleet, intending thence with their
united forces, to make a clean sweep of all the colonies from
Barbados to Jamaica —chief source then of England's wealth (the
times are altered now) — and once for all to do for the English.
With fifty ships of the line, and 20,000 land troops, it seemed an
easy matter thus to destroy at once the naval pre-eminence of
Great Britain. But '* Quare fremuerunt gentes et populi meditati
sunt inania? Qui habitat in coelis irridebit eos et Dominus
subsannabit eos. Beges eos in virga ferrea et tanquam vas figuli
confringes eos " (Psalm ii. 1, 4, 9).

As we retraced our way to Barbados with our sick seaman, we
met the trade dead ahead, and there was a good deal of pitching ;
we made, however, a good six knots against it : land remained in
sight until 4 P.M. We sighted Needham Point light at Barbados by
3 A.M. on the morning of the 19th, and at about 6 A.M. stopped, and
came to at our old anchorage in Carlisle Bay. At 10 a.m. Cowley
was landed and sent to the hospital. In the afternoon landed with
the captain, drove up to Government House to call, then across the
Savannah (where all things somehow look so natural, that it seems
much longer than it really is since we were here) and thus out
under the trees, past the garrison, to the hospital which stands, airy
and cool, by the sea-shore. Found the patient in great pain, and
feverish, but plucky and in good spirits, wished him " good-bye,"
then off to the ship : weighed under sail at 6 P.M., and shaped
course north-west for Martinique.

BARBADOS TO MARTINIQUE.

Fel. 20th. — Sailing along steadily all the night, and making- a
good six knots an hour. At 8 A.M. we are midway between St.
Lucia and Martinique, where we tacked and retacked. We should
be less than Englishmen, less than men, if we did not feel a thrill
of pride while sailing here.

It was in these waters that Rodney, on the glorious 1 2th of
April, 1782, coming across from behind Pigeon Rock on St. Lucia,
when he heard that the French had at last come out from Port
Royal bay at Martinique to meet their expected reinforcements,
broke Count de Grasse's line (teaching, thereby. Nelson to do the

188a H.M.S. DIAMOND MOCK. 109

same in like case), took and destroyed seven French ships of the
line, and scattered the rest, preventing the French fleet from joining
the Spaniards at St. Domingo, thus saving Jamaica, Barbados and
the whole West Indies, and brought about, by that single tremendous
blow, the honourable peace of 1783. The battle began at 7 A.M., and
lasted till 6.30 p.m. The loss of the English was 261 killed, and
837 wounded : the French loss was 14,000 taken or killed : and of
these 5,400 were French troops. On what a scene of crippled and
sinking, shattered and triumphant ships, in this very sea, must the
conqueror have looked round from the Farmidable's poop, while the
French admiral was with Rodney in the cabin below, and not as
he had boastfully promised with the English admiral on board his
own Ville de Paris. This ship was the gift of the city of Paris to
Louis XY. She carried 106 guns, and had 1,300 men on board,
when, after being engaged by the English flag- ship, she surrendered.
And it is not yet a hundred years ago since all this was here done.
The air yet even in clearest blaze of sunshine seems full of ghosts
— the ghosts of gallant sailors and soldiers. Truly here

" The spirits of onr fathers

Might start from eveiy wave ;
For the deck it waji their field of fame,
And ocean was their grave — "

start and ask us, their sons : " What have you done with these
islands which we won for you with precious blood ? " And what
could we answer ? We have misused them, neglected them, till, at
the present moment, ashamed of the slavery of the past, and too
ignorant and helpless to govern them as a dependency of an over -
burdened colonial bureau in London, now slavery is gone, we are
half minded to throw them away again, and '* give them up " no
matter much to whom. But was it for this that these islands were
taken and retaken, till every gully and every foot of the ocean bed
holds the skeleton of an Englishman ? Was it for this that these
seas were reddened with the blood of our own forefathers year after
year ? Did all those gallant souls go down to Hades in vain, and
leave nothing for the Englishman, but the sad and proud memory
of their useless valour ?

At 10.30 A.M. we are abeam of the Diamond Rock, and get a good
long look at it from the Bacchante^ a poop. It is an isolated rock,
with its pink and yellow sides shining in the sun, of the shape, but
double the size, of one of the great pyramids, and once a British
sloop of war. For in the end of 1803, Sir Samuel Hood saw that

110 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

French ships passing to Port Eoyal haxbour in Martinique escaped
him by running through the deep channel, three-quarters of a mile
broad, between Diamond Point and that island. It rises sheer
out of the water 600 feet, and is about a mile round, and only ac-
cessible at a point on this, the leeward side, and even then only
when there is no surf. Once landed, you have to creep through
crannies and dangerous steeps round to the windward side (the one
away from us to the east) where the eye is suddenly relieved by a
sloping grove of wild fig-trees clinging to the cracks of the stone.
So, in order to command the passage between this island and Mar-
tinique, Hood laid his ship of seventy-four guns, the CeiUaur, close
alongside the Rock ; made a hawser, with a traveller on it, fast to
the ship and to the top of the rock, and in January, 1804, got three
long twenty-four pounders, and two eighteen-pounders, hauled up
far above his mast-head by sailors, who, " as they hung like clusters,
appeared like mice hauling a little sausage." " Scarcely could we
hear the governor at the top directing them with his trumpet;
the Centaur lying close under." Here Lieutenant James Wilkie
Maurice, with 120 men and boys was established with ammunition,
provisions, and water for four months, and the rock was borne on the
books of the admiralty as H.M.S. Diamond Beck, She commanded
the passage into Martinique with her guns till the 1st June, 1805,
when she had to surrender, after three days' close engagement,
through want of powder, to an overwhelming French squadron of
two seventy-four gun frigates, a corvette, a schooner, and eleven
gun-boats, but only after destroying three gunboats and wounding
forty and killing thirty-one of the enemy, with a loss to herself
of two men killed and one wounded. The whole story is very
natural, and simply life-like in reality, both in the action of the
admiral and of the British seamen, who one and all, no doubt,
thought they were doing nothing very wonderful all the time.

Shortly afterwards, nine miles further on, we passed the entrance
of Fort Royal Bay, for years the rendezvous and stronghold of the
French fleets, from whence Count de Grasse sailed out on that fatal
8th of April, 1782. We saluted the flag of the French rear-admiral
with thirteen guns, and we could just see the smoke of the return
salute he fired from his flag-ship deep up at the end of the bay, though
the distance was too great for any sound to be distinguishable.
We sailed steadily on all the afternoon, though the wind was fall-
ing very light under the high land of the island. Towards
evening, about 5 p.m., we sight H.M.S. Tourmaline steaming up

1880.

MARTINIQUE.

Ill

astern : she overtakes us and signals that she has our missing mails
for us, and steams up to her anchorage off St. Pierre. We beat
up to ours, and come to in twenty-three fathoms at 8 P.M., close in
shore, not two cables (400 yards) off, under the cliff to the south of
the town. It was then dark, but when wo turned in we could hear
the frogs and the crickets pipiug and chirruping in the bush, and
the gentle surf lapping on the shore off from which came the
warm earth scent of the tropic night. Captain Denistoun came
on board, and brought an agouti and some greenstone and flint
hatchets and arrow-heads as a present from Mrs. Dundas at
St. Vincent. H.M.S. Northampton was lying off the port all the
night.

AT MARTINIQUE.

Wind.

Tempebaturb.

Date.
Feb.

Sea.

Air. i

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.

«P.M.

Variable 1-3

77 .

22S.

E. 8-2

N.E. 1

Feb. 21s^. — At 8 A.M., saluted the French flag at the main mast
head (for the first and, as it curiously happened, last time in our
commission) with twenty-one guns, the fort returning the salute.
At 10. A.M. H.M.S. Tourmaline sailed, and proceeded in company
with the flagship to the northward. Captain Lord Charles Scott
went away in the steam pinnace down to Fort Royal to call on the
French admiral and governor. It was at Fort Royal, in 1794, that
Captain Faulkner, commanding H.M.S. Zebra (only a brig), after
standing a heavy fire of grape from the fort for a considerable time,
to which his puny broadside could offer no effectual return,
suddenly ran the brig alongside and in the most gallant manner
captured the fort by boarding from the main-yard arm.

Martinique was captured by the English, 1762, restored in the
following year, in 1794 recaptured, restored again at the peace of
Amiens, taken again in 1810, and finally restored at the treaty of
Paris. It and Guadeloupe are the two French islands that lie
between and separate the two British groups of the leeward or
northern, and the windward or southern, Antilles.

112 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

Some of us landed at 3 P.M. and went to the office of the English
consul, Mr. Lawless, and from there, in two carriages, drove round
the town and up to the Botanic Gardens, through which we walked.
They appear neglected, but have been in their day very fine ;
there is much carved stonework about in the way of balustrades,
and broad flights of steps, and three cascades and basins, but all
now green and moss-grown. The gardens are situated on a tongue
of high ground between two glens, each of which is laid out in
winding walks. In one of these glens is the old grove of giant
palms, beneath which « many a duel has been fought; the bullet
marks are still visible on the tree-stems. We went into the mu-
seum at the gardens, where there is a good collection of preserved
flowers and snakes, fish and stuffed frogs, some of these last a foot
long. There is a specimen of a yellow fer de lance in the act of
being bolted and swallowed by a cribro. His head is lancet-shaped,
flat and very broad. Oflf to the ship at 5.30 P.M. St. Pierre is a
pretty French town, clean, with water flowing on each side of the
street ; the houses all look neat, the churches are open, the negro
people praying in them, and by the roadside are many Calvaries and
shrines of saints. The whole offers a wonderful contrast to the
British islands. It is said that the French obtained their negro
slaves in olden days from altogether different tribes in Africa to
those which furnished the British slave-holder with his, and that
hence the difference in docility and demeanour between the French
and British negro may partly be accounted for. But the chief
thing that has made the French negro so much better than the
British is that the French proprietors have never ceased to be
resident on, and to take a pride in, their own estates, and therefore
the island presents the appearance it does with its fields well cul-
tivated, its roads in good repair, alongside which are the hawthorn
hedges well trimmed and kept, and the planters' houses, many like
small villas outside Paris, bright with their jalousies and green
shutters. Though the modem Frenchman rarely, if ever, settles
in a colony for any length of time, yet apparently the Frenchman
under the old regime did so, and their descendants reside hero
still. About a third of the island is under cultivation. Nevertheless,
according to the French official returns, there are 67,000 acres of
good land lying fallow in Martinique, and 85,000 in their neighbour-
ing island of Guadeloupe. The value of the exports from all the
French colonies throughout the world that go into France is only
£4,000,000 ; to foreign countries they export about half that. The

188(). MARTINIQUE.. 113

imports from foreign countries into the French colonies are over
3,000,000/. a year, from France only 2,000,000/. A French
colony is as much a part of France as any other d^artement,
and Martinique returns like one of these its member to the
Assembly in Paris. There are 150,000 negroes here, 20,000 whites,
and 16,000 coolies. {Annuaire Statisque de France, 1880.)

Feb. 22nd. — A beautiful morning ; like one at midsummer in
England. . From our anchorage watched the negroes, men, women
and children trooping in from the country to the town by the
path which comes down from the woods ai^d then runs along the
beach in front of the cliff close to us. Had the usual Sunday
services to-day under the awnings on the quarter-deck.

Ftb. 2Srd. — A party of us lunched with the consul at one, and
then started on ponies for Home Bouge in the centre of the
island. We rode up over the now dry mountain torrent in the
middle of the town pf St. Pierre, and under the shady promenade of
great trees on its bank, where we saw merry-go-rounds and other
toys arranged just as in the Champs Elys^s, and so went on up past
the Botanical Gardens and the cultivated grounds outside the town
to a pretty inland village. The cool breath of the trade-wind
from the north-east was blowing in our faces the whole way up.
Went for a few minutes into the new church here, all panelled
with white marble, along which run Latin texts in gold letters ; and
then up to the Calvary behind. The stations of the cross are set
all the way up the hill on either side the path, and the consul's
little boy trotted along with us chattering his simple notions
about La Vierge, son FiU, et le grand Dieu en del. From the
summit there was a most extensive view; away to the north
rose the peak of Home Pelee 4,400 fb. high ; a cloud or two was
forming on its scarred sides by the cool east trade wind as it drifted
in upon them from the Atlantic, the blue of which is visible far
below on the other side of the island. Stretching right up to the
foot of Mome Pel^e were cultivated fields just as in Europe.
(Mome is merely negro patois for Mont.) Away to the south is
the other peak of the island Mome Carbet, very precipitous, but
covered with trees to the top, and down its sides the track of
mountain torrents, made by the recent heavy rains, is still visible,
and all up to its foot stretch the same cultivated fields and park-like
woods. We gathered some beautiful roses in the garden of a house
at which we halted, up on this high land. Bode back to the
town, which we reached at 7.16 p.m. Off at once to the ship^

VOL. I. I

114 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

Mountain mullet caught here with fly just the same as at St.
Vincent and St. Lucia.

Feb, 24th. — Landed at 7.45 A.M., a small party of six, and met
Consul Lawless on the pier, to which we pulled in, astern of the long
line of French schooners and brigs which are moored alongside
each other to the south of the town. Over these on the right, on
the green hill-side, is distinguishable the white marble monument
of the Empress Josephine, who was bom here ; as was also her
first husband, de Beauhamais. Close to the landing-place are the
casks of sugar waiting to be shipped, and along behind them runs
the avenue of trees by the water's edge, as in a European port.
Here we mounted ponies and started down the chief street of St.
Pierre, noticing on either side, aloft in the stone walls of the
houses, the supports and brackets that were used for spreading the
awning the whole length of the street in olden days as in an
eastern bazaar. Then out of the town and along the shore, crossing
more than one mountain torrent, now dry, and under the shade of
trees for the greater part of the way, until we arrived, two and
a half miles out, at a large village, where we left the road and
struck up into the hills on the right by a mountain path to the
alkaline baths of the Prficheur, under the old extinct volcano
of Mome Pelde. The- last half of the ride is up ravines and by
the side of a mountain torrent which runs brawling below, and
every now and then affords abrupt views of red cliffs over which
trail veils of creepers, and then, through broken gaps, of the sea
beyond the woods. At the dablissemcnt, which is 500 feet above
the sea, we had a warm natural bath, which you can take either
privately by yourself, where the water comes in jets from the rock
or else in a swimming tank. The water is very dense, though very
clear, and hence there is a difficulty in keeping the limbs under
water. Its temperature is 34*^ R(5aumur, and chloride of sodium
is said to be its main ingredient. Its action is said to be as mild
as that of some sorts of Vichy. We felt enervated rather than
refreshed after dabbling about here for half an hour, and quite
ready for the good lunch which we found laid out in the shade by
the restaurant, at the end of a terrace under some fine trees, with
benches and a statue of the Virgin in the centre. There is a
large wooden building all along one side of this open space,
something between a Swiss cottage and a monastery ; the rooms
in it are let out to families who wish to avail themselves of the
baths, or quiet stay in a healthy, dry and airy retreat. The cost for

1880.

DOMINICA.

115

the day for baths, furnished lodging and board, varies from three
francs and a half to thirteen francs. We met many cripples going
away on crutches ; the place is said to be largely patronised by
French soldiers for various skin diseases, old wounds, fistula and
rheumatic afifections. The waters are drunk as well as bathed in.
We started homewards about 2 P.M. and did the five miles back to
the town in an hour and a quarter ; did some shopping, liqueurs
and preserved fruit chiefly, and returned to the ship about 4 P.M.,
and at 5 P.M. weighed under sail, steering towards the north-west.
A charming moonlight night and nearly a calm with only just a
rufile of wind.

MARTINIQUE TO DOMINICA.

F^. 25th, — At 4 A.M. were in sight of Dominica four miles
ahead, but as the wind fell light under the hills we did not get in
till 3.30 P.M., when we anchored in thirty-three fathoms oflf Boseau.
Dominica, or " Sunday Island," was first sighted by Columbus on
that day of the week, November 3rd, 1493, and must not be con-
fused with Dominique, as the French called their half of the
island of Haiti, which to us bears the Spanish name St. Domingo.
In this very roadstead on the 9th April, 1782, Rodney caught up
the French and would have beaten them there and then, had not
a great part of his fleet lain becalmed, as we were, under those
highlands up there in front. From the offing the island appears ,

AT DOMINICA

Date.

Wind.

Tempcbaturk.

Sen.

Air.

Noon.

6 pm.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Feb.

N.E. 1

Vai-iable 1

N.W. 1-2

29S.

...

March

Variable 1

N.W. 8-2

N.E. 1-2

to be very precipitous, though thickly wooded in the interior ; the
landing-place is to the left of where we are anchored. By that

I 2

116 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

we can see one or two stores with wooden verandahs^ and the ever-
lasting sugar and molasses. To the right of these stores rise the
towers of the Eoman Catholic cathedral, and behind them comes
the house of the president, close to which is the little domed classic
English church. Sloping down from this last and crossing what
used to be the old market-place, but which is now all overgrown
with grass and weeds, you come out on the edge of the cliff just
opposite our anchorage ; and from this further to the south runs a
long tumbledown street, grass-grown though once paved, and with
the ruined stone foundations of many once respectable houses on
either side. Now, only a few dirty-looking wooden negro huts,
each in its own garden, can be seen here — some built on the founda-
tions of the former houses that were burnt down by the French in
1781, others in the gardens. The apathy that followed the sudden
abolition of slavery in the West Indies, and the consequent
desolations wrought in the name of humanity, not wisely but too
well, still remain. Of course the abolition of slavery was a
righteous thing, and it was done in an heroic manner; it is easy
enough for us to be wise after the event, beholding the conse-
quences that inevitably followed from the manner of the deed ; to
note those consequences is not to question the rightness of the
deed itself. As it was, the negroes, from being slaves of one kind,
which often was slavery only in name, became slaves in reality,
though free men in name. Emancipated suddenly they had neither
the means, energy nor education, to support themselves; free citizen-
ship did but debase and demoralise them.

[On August 1, 1834 (exactly the 120th anniversary of the
accession of the Hanoverian dynasty to the throne of England),
slavery was abolished throughout all that wide area of the earth's
surface over which the British Crown holds sway. The slave trade
between Africa and the West Indies had been previously abolished
in 1807. The emancipation of the West Indian slaves cost Great
Britain twenty millions of money. The time at which that sum
was raised has to be taken into account before we can understand
what a burden it was which the people of this country took upon
their shoulders so readily and enthusiastically ; thereby attesting
the sincerity of the national devotion to the principle of human
liberty and the strict regard paid, by the English people, to the
claims of property, even when that property was human flesh.
They recognised the fact that the Legislature, which had permitted
and sanctioned slavery, was just as much responsible for its exist-

1880. ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. 117

ence as the individuals who happened to own slaves ; and they paid
honestly for the rights they swept away. The Imperial exchequer
had indeed been receiving, for 200 years, a direct annual payment
in the shape of a 4^ per cent, tax on the produce of the West
Indies. This had amounted to more than a million and a half
pounds in some years, and therefore it might be pleaded that the
British Government merely restored the annual tribute at fourteen
years purchase back to the planters when they decreed the abolition
of slavery. Still 20,000,000/. was a far larger sum fifty years ago than
it is now. It was more than a third-part of the whole revenue of the
country; now it is much less than a fourth -part. The population
that undertook the burden was smaller and far poorer, and taxed
over its whole area in a way that would astonish the working man if
he had to bear such charges nowadays. Yet there was no shrink-
ing, and no dishonesty : no notion then of making one section of
the community in one of the three kingdoms pay for a beneficent
scheme of State policy. The honour of the country appears to
have been something to it at that time. Comparing that day
with this, do we see no falling off of public spirit in the re-
cognition of great duties, in the readiness to fulfil responsi-
bilities ? The fact is that the West Indies are, at present, a
glaring example of the terrible penalties following on reckless acts
of inconsiderate sentiment which have been the curse of English
statesmanship in the nineteenth century. Englishmen enfranchised
the West Indian slaves, and paid a not inconsiderable sum as com-
pensation. They took absolutely no account of the fact that the
whole social and economic system of the islands had been built up
on the two pillars of slavery and commercial protective duties,
and that when these w^ere, no doubt very properly, cut away, it
must topple down unless something else was provided. Acting
thus in avowed deference to the rules of morality it was impossible
for Englishmen to escape a further moral responsibility. Of no
other part of the Queen's dominions can it be said so emphatically
as it can of the West Indies that the ruling country is under
a distinct obligation to it. The temporary prosperity, and the
dense population which is not temporary, were the distinct and
artificial work of England, the results of a long course of deliberate
policy. The depression which has succeeded that prosperity has
been caused by the deliberate acts of English Governments.

There can be no doubt that the decay of the West Indies set in
from the yeai- of emancipation. At that time the plantation

118 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

business was tbe most flourishing and valuable branch of the
whole British trade. It was naturally thrown out of gear at once.
In the first place, though twenty millions was voted by Parliament
only about eighteen and a half were actually awaixled to the
planters for slaves; the value of whom was estimated by the
Government Commissioners at the time of emancipation to
equal at least forty-three millions. During the twelve years
succeeding the emancipation the position of the employers and
employed was completely reversed. The negro, suddenly freed
from all restraint, revelled in the newly- tasted joys of freedom
and worked as little as he pleased, and as a matter of course
the sugar-cane remained uncut, the cofiFee-berries unpicked, the
plantations weed-grown and untidy. The soil was prolific as ever,
the bare necessaries of life grew with little or no trouble, but
labourers were wanting to gamer the abundance it put forth.
Much land went out of cultivation, and what land was still
cultivated left a loss instead of a profit to the proprietors. Their
industry was further crippled by a steady fall in the price of sugar
in the home markets owing to the rapid improvement in facilities
of communication. Still the West Indian planter persevered and
struggled on : and protected as he was against competition with
slave-grown produce matters gradually improved.

In 1846, however, another blow fell upon the West Indies. The
Com Laws had just been abolished, and the English nation was en-
thusiastic for free trade in all directions. The Sugar Act of that
year did away with the protective duties on foreign imported sugar ;
it admitted slave-grown sugar from Cuba and Brazil to the English
market on the same terms as that manufactured by free labour.
The price of West Indian muscovado was reduced from 40/. to 2,01.
per hogshead to the English consumer; he was therefore benefited.
So far, so good of course ; but with what practical results ? The
cultivation of slave-grown sugar was enormously stimulated ; so
much so that 1846 more than undid for the negio what 1834 had
accomplished. The horrors of slavery were inflicted upon thousands
who would otherwise have been free, and an amount of misery was
caused to a large portion of the human race which can hardly be
over-estimated. In order to give Englishmen cheap sugar the
slave trade was revived. From 1840 to 1845 only 32,000 slaves
were imported into Brazil ; in 1846 and 1847 no less than 110,000
were imported. In Cuba, previously to 1846 the importation of

1880. IMPETUS TO SLAVE TRADE. I ID

slaves had practically died out ; for a number of years after 1846
slaves were introduced into Cuba from Africa, often over 40,000 a
year, and as late as 1861 the slave trade was still on the increase.
In that year it was admitted in Parliament that three Africans
were torn from their homes and enslaved for every one landed,
owing to the deaths and suicides in the middle passage. Over-
crowding of slaves on board slavers, and other horrors connected
with running the cargoes across the Atlantic, were also aggravated
rather than suppressed by the British squadron now kept on the
coast of Africa for that purpose. The cost of that squadron yearly
to the British sugar consumer was considerably more than he had
gained on his cheapened sugar, grown by the hands of those very
blacks whose importation into Cuba and Brazil he had thoughtlessly
and illogically stimulated.

The Act of 1846 was framed on principles which appeared in
theory unassailable ; but when put in practice it produced disastrous
results which must not be ignored. Cuban and Brazilian planters
made enormous fortunes, their crops rapidly increased ; and all this
time misery and ruin were pressing on our own colonies. Within two
years after 1846 fifty large houses connected with the West Indies
had failed with liabilities exceeding 6,000,000/. Mr. Gladstone
had almost foreseen the result of the Acts of 1846, and had expressed
his strong disapproval of the policy those measures inaugurated ;
so also had Lord Palmerston. With reference to the theoretical
argument that "a free labourer will work better than a slave,"
and that therefore his services are so much more valuable. Lord
Derby described it with reference to the West Indian industry
as "a cruel mockery." "The African has no desire to better
his condition by the sweat of his brow ; he is quite content
to earn sufficient to satisfy his few and simple wants, and never
thinks of amassing money by the fruits of honest industry. It
is therefore idle to pretend that the labour of this man is of equal
value with the involuntary toil of the Cuban slave. The difference
between the two is simply this, that the free labourer will never
work more than sheer necessity compels him, whereas the slave is
obliged to work to the extreme limit of human endurance." As
the West Indian planter found himself face to face with these
difficulties — the difficulty of cultivating his estate at a remunerative
cost owing to the disinclination of the negro to work and owing to
the competition he had to meet from the slave employer — he
naturally in many cases gave up the contest; in others he struggled

120 CRUISE OF H.M.a. BACCHANTE, 1880.

ou. The more a proprietor got into debt in the endeavour to tide
over what was supposed to be a temporary depression, the less able
was he to cultivate his estate ; and the more the estates went out
of cultivation the more opportunity was there for the reversion
by the negro race to that half savage life of freedom — ^ill-fed and
comfortless, but idle and therefore congenial to him — which the
negro's soul loves. Such evils have since tended to increase, as
all evils do.

However, crushed and ruined as the planters in our sugar pro-
ducing colonies were, they did not all give themselves up to despair.
Englishmen do not know when they 'are beaten, and the indomita-
ble energy shown by the planters is no bad example of this virtue
of our race. Once more they put their shoulders to the wheel and
by slow degrees succeeded in improving their condition. At last
in 1868, the slave trade in Cuba was put down. The insurrection
followed ; and as regards Cuba, the West Indies found themselves
able to compete successfully.

No sooner, howeve^*, was the advantage which the slave trade
gave to Cuba removed than the planters found themselves assailed
by another rival — ^the beet-sugar producer of Europe. But as now
we are getting upon debateable ground, and the question is still
one of controversy, we will merely give the arguments adduced on
either side. It is affirmed that the present crisis in the sugar
trade (1884), which is alleged to be bringing the planting industry
in the West Indies to ruin, has been mainly brought about by the
bounty-fed production of beet-root sugar on the Continent, and
that if the bounty system in Germany, France, and other continental
counties, be left unchecked, the cultivation of sugar in the West
Indies will collapse, while at the same time the artisans employed
in the manufacture of sugar at home will be driven out of the field
by an unjustly favoured foreign competition. The Board of Trade
contends on the other hand, " that prices are not affected in any great
measure by the giving of bounties in some countries, but rather by
the enormous expansion of its production. Sugar has not fallen in
price more than other articles, notably wheat, rice, tea. The
maximum amount of sugar receiving a bounty on refining is only
about 270,000 tons against an annual total of 3,000,000 tons
refined. In spite of low prices, the production of sugar in every
part of the world is increasing, and is not confined to the bounty
fed beet-root sugar. The production of cane-sugar in the West
Indies themselves and Guiana, in 1880-2, exceeded by 10 per cent.

1880. SUGAR BOUNTIES. 121

the producfcion in 1877-9. In 1883 the West Indian production
was 296,000 tons : the annual average five or six years earlier was
260,000 tons. And though the home consumption of British cane-
sugar has declined, yet the difference is far more than made up
to the West Indies by the demand developed in the United States
and Canada."

Granted for a moment, however, that the bounty-fed sugar is
undermining the West Indian trade with England, what is the
remedy asked for ? The West Indian planters ask that all sugar
that has received bounty from a foreign Government on export
should be subject to a countervailing duty on coming into England
equal in amount to the bounty, so that they might compete together
on equal terms in the home market. The arguments in favour of
such a policy are plausible, and were adopted by the majority
(fifteen out of seventeen) of the Select Committee of the House .
of Commons which inquired into the subject in 1880. The Board
of Trade, however, has steadily combated the proposition, both on
practical and theoretical grounds.

The English people in 1883 consumed over 1,000,000 tons of
sugar, over 68 lbs. per head of the population; its cost, 30,000,000/.
sterling, is about half the amount spent on bread. According to
the estimate made by the West Indian planters themselves the
reduction of price due to bounties is about 51. per ton, which is
a gain of 5,000,000/. sterling annually to the people of the United
Kingdom. Would it be right under any circumstances to ask the
consumers in the United Kingdom to forego cheap sugar in order
to encourage an industry with which their connection is so
indirect ? Ought the 35,000,000 white men in these islands to be
taxed for the benefit of the 1,500,000 negroes in the West Indies ?

To this, the opposite side reply : " Your satisfaction in the
present cheapening of your sugar is as shortsighted in 1884 as it
was in 1846. Look at the consequences. We admit that bounties
are ridiculous. Mr. John Stuart Mill classes in one category as
producing unsound artificial cheapness 'stolen goods, smuggled
goods, slave-grown produce, and bounty-aided manufactures.' We
admit the teaching of Adam Smith : ' The effect of bounties can
only be to force the trade into a channel much less advantageous
than that in which it would naturally run of its own accord.'
And that of Jeremy Bentham : ' The giving of bounties on ex-
portation is an ingenious pretence for inducing a foreign nation to
receive tribute from you without being aware of it — a little like

122 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

that of the Irishman who passed his light guinea by slipping it in
between two half-pence.' It is quite true that at present Germany
and France think fit to make a present to foreign purchasers of
perhaps an ounce in every pound of sugar ; and that the operation
of the bounty has necessarily been that the continental population
is heavily taxed for a purpose in which only their sugar-growers and
sugar-refiners, whether employers or workmen, have the smallest
interest ; that English consumers obtain refined sugar at a price
which is sometimes below the cost of production, and that the
whole arrangement might have been devised as a caricature of
the policy of Protection. But do you imagine it possible that
the subjects of foreign Governments do not understand the reason
that they are paying considerably increased taxes for the purpose
of supplying England with cheap sugar ? They are making sugar
artificially cheap now in order to make it artificially dear by and
by. The so called payment by Germany of a tribute to England
is willingly endured because it is looked upon in the nature of a
tax by means of which the war of competition is being carried on.
The German sugar manufacturer can afford to sell his sugar in
England below cost price since the difference is made up to him
by his Government. When the German Government have obtained
their triumph over their rival, then, the nation will recoup itself.
Their policy is nothing more nor less than that which is well known
to our own English manufacturers, several firms of whom have
what is called their * fighting capital,* a reserve fund which they
draw upon when they undersell their rivals at a temporary loss in
order to drive them from the market, and after thus ridding them-
selves of competition command their own prices. The self-satisfied
argument that the English should be thankful to the Germans for
this present of cheap sugar would be all very well on the childish
supposition that the German Government were ^giving it to us out
of sheer benevolence or pure stupidity, and that these low prices
would last after the British workmen are starved out and British
competition disposed of. When the British grown cane-sugar has
been extinguished — (and the increase in the amount produced that
you point to with such satisfaction is due only to excessive com-
petition, and cannot be kept up indefinitely) — then the cost of the
beet-sugar will be raised ; and our industry having been put to death
you will suffer and be entirely dependent on foreigners for your
supply. Having driven cane-sugar out of the market, and
thrown a large number of plantations out of culiivation, they will

1880. SUGAR BOUNTIES. 123

then be able to charge what prices they like. Englishmen have
millions of money invested in machinery and agricultural plant
in the West Indies; if sugar fails them there is nothing else
to which they can turn, their ruin would be utter, and when the
industry is once slain it could not be revived again. Remember
also (the argument runs) that nearly all that goes to make a ton of
British cane-sugar is the direct outcome of home labour in the
foim of sugar machinery, artificial manures, copper-pans, coal,
&c. In Derby, for instance, where large sugar machinery works are
located, so serious a decline in orders for sugar machinery from the
West Indies has been experienced aa to throw many hundreds of
skilled mechanics out of work. Your mercantile marine suffers too by
the diversion of the sugar trade. If the British Government were
to place a countervailing duty of 2**. id. per cwt. against German
sugar, then as Great Britain is the chief market, the export of the
whole German sugar industry would receive a severe check and it
would be the means of abolishing the bounty system and bringing
about a general reduction of the German tariff, and practically
conduce more to free trade than a doctrinaire clinging to its
principles."

The impression left in the minds of the working men's
delegations to Germany was that the majority of the German
people are against the continuation of the bounty system, though
the landholders and the people interested in the trade in the
agricultural centres of industry are favourable to a continuation
and even an extension of the system ; whereby they are enabled
to sell their sugar even below cost price in the English and other
markets. This year's crop of beet sugar in Germany is estimated
at 1,200,000 tons ; of this enormous outturn only 400,000 tons
are required for their home consumption. It results therefore
that 800,000 tons will be exported from Germany at a cost to that
country for drawback in the shape of bounty of nearly 2,000,000/.
sterling. They will flood the English market, and at this rate
not only give you a present of 6,000,000Z. but of 11,000,000/. on
your annual consumption. This will almost put the finishing
stroke to the competition, by still further driving down the price
of British cane sugar. Besides, urge the planters, the assertion
that the principles of free trade will not admit of the British
Government levying a countervailing duty is not borne out by
facts. Formerly English spirits paid 10s., colonial rum lOs. 2rf.,
and foreign spirits 10a. 5d, per proof gallon duty. In 1884 the

124 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

duty on colonial rum has been raised to 10«. 4d. thus giving a
further protection to the home distiller, who continues to pay 10s.,
while the duty on foreign spirits has been lowered to lOs 4sd. to
the benefit of the beet-root and potato spirit. No more flagrant
case of protection to home industries and of the promotion
of foreign adulteration to the injury of ourselves could be
imagined.

To which the reply is, " The excessive cheapness of sugar, how-
ever caused, while it lasts is a benefit to the consumer. No
Government in England dare propose a duty upon sugar imported
from abroad. Sugar lias now become a necessary of life, and if
this countervailing import duty were laid upon it there would be an
outcry that the widow and orphan, the starving needlewoman, and
the struggling fathers of families, were taxed for the benefit of a
few capitalists in a small trade Nor is it only the consumers who
would oppose a countervailing duty. Sugar is employed as a raw
material now in many manufactories — in brewing, biscuit-baking,
mineral-water-distilling, jam and confectionary. All these employ
several thousands of labourers who benefit by this cheapness, and
who would oppose the duty as bitterly as the consumer. It is no
use trying to persuade the British Government to adopt retaliative
measures. The only chance for the sugar industry lies in the hope
that the bounty-giving countries will so undersell each other in
their competition that they will be forced to return to legitimate
trading. Already they are crying out that the evil day is upon
them, and failures are getting to be very plentiful, notwithstanding
the artificial help afibrded by Government."

" The Board of Trade retain the conviction that the bounty
system will break down, and are satisfied that on the whole during
the last few years it has become weaker and not stronger. The
embarrassment to all the countries who try it is obvious. France,
which initiated the system, has had to reduce the bounties so con-
siderably that in 1880 they were substantially abandoned. Austria,
which a few years ago outstripped France, and even was flooding
France with its sugar, has also had to cut down the bounties, if not
to abolish them altogether. Germany is the only country which
now gives bounties large enough to derange the trade. The
German Government has shown itself dissatisfied with the system
by partially reducing the bounty. Legislation to get rid of them
seems probable enough in Germany before long. The free-traders
of Germany are most earnest and vigorous in their efibrts to put

1880. WEST INDIES AND CANADA. 125

down tbe bounty system. They regard it as diflferent from any
tariff system ; and while they have not attempted since 1879 to
interfere with the tariff system, not a week passes that there do
not appear in the Liberal journals strong articles against the bounty
system. The system has led to immense over-production. Another
result of the bounties has been to withdraw from the cultivation
of cereals much land necessary to be devoted to the growing of
wheat. Besides which few crops exhaust the soil more than
continuous beet-growing. Each country must find out before long
the serious character of the evils they are inflicting on themselves.
No foreign Government has a large surplus to sacrifice for the sake
of giving cheap commodities to neighbouring peoples."

Since the receipt of this official memorandum, many West Indians,
gravely disheartened at the low prices, and not less incensed at
what appeared to them the inaction of the Home Government, have
taken up the idea of joining the Canadian Dominion. With a total
annual value of exports approaching ten millions, more than four-
fifths of which is sugar, it was a life and death matter with them.
They urged that they could not wait in philosophic manner
for the gradual working out of the results of that economic law
theoretically expected by the Board of Trade. By joining the
Dominion of Canada as Provinces they would hope to obtain
a protected market for their sugar, and to give in return a
protected market for her manufactures of all sorts. Canada
grows and manufactures everything that the West Indian Islands
require. Flour, meal, pork, fish, are the staple foods imported
into the West Indies. Where better than from Canada could
these be procured ? It is true that the Canadian Dominion in-
cludes at present only 5,000,000 inhabitants ; and that they con-
sume about 70,000 tons of sugar in the year, 30,000 tons of which
already come from the West Indies ; and that the total amount of
sugar at present produced in the West Indies is 400,000 tons, more
than five times the amount Canada requires : but if the West
Indies were tropical Provinces of the Dominion the requirements
of sugar for other manufa<;tories to be carried on in the Dominion
would be probably greatly enlarged. There are already five sugar
refineries in Canada employing directly 3,500 persons, and in-
directly 30,000. Beet-sugar making has been tried in the province
of Quebec and found a failure ; whence so well as from the West
Indies could raw sugar be obtained ? With the development given

126 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

to the various manufactures that employ sugar now, brewing, &c.,
the total output of the West Indies and British Guiana, even if
doubled in a few years, will find sufficient market in the Dominion.

To this it is replied, " that there are difficulties connected with
finance, such as the taking over by Canada of the public debts of
the West Indian colonies. The money so borrowed was advanced
in some cases under the direct guarantee of the Home Govern-
ment. Would the Canadian Dominion assume such responsibility
or the British Government allow it ? Another financial problem
is the Revenue question. The whole system of raising revenue
would be assimilated to that of the Dominion, and foremost among
the fiscal changes would be the adoption of the severe customs
tariff at present in force in the Dominion. In most of the West
Indian colonies, and especially in the smaller islands, and in those
in the neighbourhood of French settlements, it has been found
that in practice high customs duties fail altogether, because of the
impossibility of preventing smuggling on an extensive scale. The
adoption of the Canadian tariff would mean a very considerable in-
crease in the expenditure on customs establishments in the West
Indies. It is true that Canadian manufacturers might hope to secure
monopoly of the West Indian market; but judging from the steady
increase of the imports of English manufactures into Canada itself,
there seems little reason to suppose that the same tariff applied to
the West Indies will keep out English manufactures from those
islands. There is, for instance, the great item of sugar-making
machinery and plant, which it is essential to have as cheap and as
good as possible. The difference the tariff would make would be that
the West Indian colonists would have to pay much more than they
now do for the same article. The only sure way to encourage a
great and free interchange of commodities — of West Indian raw
sugar on the one hand, and Canadian lumber and flour and salt
fish on the other — is by a mutual reduction or abolition of customs
duties. This would give Canada and the West Indies all they
could gain by closer union, and yet not involve either in the
losses and disadvantages, the risks and expenses, incident to political
incorporation."

The West Indian rejoins that " the Home Government has given
Canada power to negotiate such reciprocity custom arrangements :
but that they have not such power ; and that unless they were able
to offer the Canadian protectionists some equivalent for the pro-
posed admission of their sugar duty firee into the Dominion, so as

1880. WEST INDIES AND THE UNITED STATES. 127

to secure them a protected market in the West Indies, there is no
prospect of any such mutual interchange as suggested. Give then
to the West Indian colonies the same power of framing commercial
treaties as you have given to your other colonies : or if you will
not, at any rate negotiate a reciprocal commercial agreement
between the United States and the West Indies, by which they
would admit raw sugar from the West Indies duty free at nominal
rates in consideration of a reduction by the West Indian Govern-
ment of the import duties on such American produce as bread
stuffs, salt-fish, and timber. Spain has carried through in four
months (a standing criticism on the inaction of the English
Government), a convention with the United States, whereby her
colonies in America, the West Indies, Cuba, and Porto Eico, may
import into the States all raw sugar and tobacco duty free, and other
products at reduced duties : while the Cuba and Porto Rico tariffs
are to be modified so as to admit American fiour on the same
footing as Spanish. The result of this convention will be, that
unless Great Britain obtains for us, or allows - us to obtain,
similar terms for the British West Indies, our sugar will now
be entirely excluded from the American market. This question is
one of the utmost importance to the West Indies. Their total
exports of tropical produce has nearly trebled during the last
thirty years, and nearly the whole of this increased output has
been absorbed by the markets of the United States and Canada,
While the importation of sugar from the West Indian colonies
into the United Kingdom has fallen off to at least a third of
what it was, during the last few years through the importation
of cheaper bounty-fed beet-root sugar from the Continent; the
large market for their sugar in the United States has been their
great mainstay, where 50,000,000 of people consume 1,200,000
tons of sugar annually. And this market even is now about to be
closed to the West Indies by the inaction of the British Govern-
ment. The United States has already by reciprocity treaties
granted special facilities for the entrance of sugar from the
Sandwich Islands, Mexico, Cuba and Porto Rico, whereby it is no
longer to be weighted with the additional import duty. At present,
sugar of the lowest class, the rawest of the raw, has to pay an
import duty of 81. per ton, with 26 per cent, ad valorem, which at
present prices is in all about 105 per cent, ad valorem. Four-fifths
of the sugar imported now pays this high duty : in future Cuba
and Porto Rico are ta be freed from it, but not the British West

128 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

Indies. Live fish imported from the United States to Cuha are to
pay no duty on entrance, and all tonnage dues on Spanish vessels
leaving United States ports for Cuba are to be remitted : and the
United States will remove the 10 per cent, valorem duty on imports
from Cuba and Porto Rico into the United States. The West
Indian Committee therefore urge the Home Government to obtain
the inclusion of the West Indian colonies in the most favoured
nation clause of the treaty : or to allow the legislatures of these
colonies to enter into reciprocal commercial relations with the
United States under the terms of a treaty between Great Britain
and the United States similar to that negotiated between that
country and Spain/' The reply to which is, "Her Majesty's
Government would be very glad if it were possible, to obtain the
extension of the most favoured nation clause to British colonies,
but there is no present prospect of negotiation for that purpose
leading to any result. Her Majesty's Government is not prepared
to allow West Indian colonies to enter into reciprocal commercial
arrangements with the United States." And so in Feb. 1884 it
was resolved by the West Indian Committee, " that they regard
with deep concern and regret the statement that Her Majesty's
Government are unable themselves to secure, and prohibit Her
Majesty's colonial legislatures from attempting to secure, for the
trade between the British West Indies and the United States
equal concessions and advantages to those readily obtained by the
Spanish Government in favour of the Spanish West Indies, and
this Committee believe that this restriction of the Government
upon all attempts by the colonies to secure a free development of
the West Indian and American trade, will occasion great dis-
appointment in the West Indian colonies." It has done so ; and
now there is an ever-increasing party within the West Indian
colonies, who, rightly or wrongly, reason that — as the British
Government say in effect * Perish the colonies so long as people
in England can obtain, for however short a time, and no matter
by what means, sugar at an unnaturally cheap price,' — and as there
is already a real identity of interest between the United States
and these colonies, since they obtain from the States their food
supplies, and the main necessaries of life — and as, driven from the
markets of Europe, the States offer us an unlimited market for
our produce, with the result of a very considerable enhancement
in the value of our properties — why should not the West Indian
colonies seek admission to the States ? Of the large colonial family

1880. DOMINICA. 120

of Great Britain we form a small, and in your eyes, insignificant
member. Loyally for years we have fought the fight of competition
with slave-grown produce imposed on us by imperial policy, and
after a fashion we have held our own. A new and more serious
calamity, the foreign bounty system, threatens us with extinction.
Practically you say you can do nothing to help us, though with us
it is a matter of life and death. Loose us, and let us go."

To which Lord Derby's oflScial reply is, "Undoubtedly the
United States are a more natural market for the West Indian
colonies than Europe ; but Great Britain is not prepared to make
special arrangements between the United States and the West
Indies. The Government admit that the position of the West
Indies is one of such great difficulty that the Government should
not stick at trifles with a view to help and relieve them : and of
course the day is gone by when Great Britain would seek to retain
any colony who desired to claim independence, or transfer its
allegiance to another power."

And there we must leave the controversy. What the next step
will be remains to be seen. Meanwhile it is well to bear in mind,
that the Select Committee of the House of Commons on sugar
industries in 1880 reported : " That a countervailing duty is not in
any sense of the term, protection. That in 1864, the recognition
of the principle of a countervailing duty was accepted by the
Government of the day without protest." " On the question of
principle we see no objection to the imposition of a duty to coun-
tervail a bounty, and (after hearing evidence from Custom House
officials) in the practicability of levying it, no insurmountable
difficulties. The chances are that if a duty was placed upon refined
sugar imported from countries which pay a bounty to the refiner,
it would in a very short space of time break down the whole bounty
system — a system deliberately intended to crush the British
producer of refined sugar."]

jPeJ. 26th. — A small party of us landed at 7.30 A.M. and walked
up to the President's (Mr. Eldridge), and rode with him through the
town of Roseau and down the long deserted street on the south of the
market-place ; at the end we turned sharp to the left, andso struck the
remains of the old road, which is cut here sheer in the cliffs side.
We wound thus up and up until at the top of the hill we came to
Eggleston, the ruins of an old house, in the midst of what was once
a garden but now is a wilderness, where many roses were still trailing
about, and whence there was a fine view over the centre of the island*

VOL. I. K

130 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

In size Domiaica is about as large as the Isle of Man, or half as large
again as Barbados, but its character is totally different. At present
the greater portion of the island is in an unreclaimed and wild
condition ; not more than a fifth of the available land is under cul-
tivation. Sugar, cacao, spices, fruit, grow prolitically in valleys
which are for the most part near the coast but isolated from one
another by densely wooded tracts of country. The forests contain
much valuable timber ; and there are several extensive level and
fertile tracts which, when cleared, would become valuable for
agricultural purposes, and are well suited for large sugar factories.
But before this can be done some sort of immigration is absolutely
necessary. The bad cultivation of all the present estates is due to
the unsteadiness of the negro labour supply. The mountains
bordering the sea round the whole island were at one time covered
with plantations of coffee, of which from two to five million lbs. per
year used to be raised. But about thirty years ago there appeared on
the trees a blight which has completely ruined these properties ;
not much more coffee is now produced than suffices for consumption
by the inhabitants. The cultivation is, however now at last
reviving. In no island more than Dominica is the contrast of what
it must once have been with what it is now, more clear. In all direc-
tions inland run these roads, cut in the mountain side with much
labour, and of more than sufficient breadth for wheeled vehicles to
pass ; no wheeled cart even exists in the island now, and we passed
along miles of these roads overgrown with jungle and creepers,
and with just a path for one negro or one pony. It is on the heads
of negroes that most of the traffic is carried now from one part of
the island to another. Good roads are the greatest want of
Dominica. In olden days a very simple and to the public inexpensive
procedure existed for their up-keep. There was a road leading to
every plantation, and each proprietor of land was bound to maintain
it from one end of his estate to the other. The roads have to be
carried over a country which is usually mountainous, rocky or thickly
wooded, and when they follow the bottom of the valleys they aie
liable also to be swept by the heavy floods and mountain torrents ;
so that it is more expensive to keep up a road in Dominica than in
any other West Indian island. On the hills, in more than one place,
we came across the ruins of other planters' houses in fine positions
similar to Eggleston. We are glad to hear that the cacao cultivation
is flourishing hero as in Grenada. The cacao exports have rapidly
increased to about three-quarter-million lbs. a year ; land can be

1880. DOMINICA— BADINOCH, 131

purchased at about 20s. an acre, in lota of not less than forty acres.
The cacao fetches 37«. Qd, per lb., and most small proprietors raise
more than 100 lbs. Most of the estates on which it is grown in
this island are small, consisting of not more than fifty or sixty
acres, and many of these are in the hands of negro proprietors.
Much Crown land that might be cultivated still remains untouched.
We worked round the hill towards the south until we came upon a
lovely little residence, in a valley opening to the sea, called Badinoch,
which Sir Henry Irving, when he was governor of Antigua, intended
to make his summer residence. The house is one-storied, entirely
of wood, with deep verandahs all round it that open into a garden,
which forms a platform over the valley below. Two valleys here
intersect, in each there is a stream of watei* — which never fails to run
the whole year through — brawling over its stony bed. Down to
these from the house through the wood run many paths zig-zagging
here and there on the hill-side, and everywhere about there are many
specimens of curious flowers and shrubs, which the former occupant
had acclimatised. Towering above the house rise the old cocoa-
nut palms, up one of which an old negro, left in charge of the now
deserted house, climbed, and tumbled us down some green nuts for
a morning draught. In front of the house is a piece of green
sward surrounded with bread-fruit trees and glossy-leaved shrubs
resembling camelias. A little hill rises to the west of this, covered
with larger trees, on the top of which used to stand a summer-house
looking out to sea. We rode back to the town, along the shore, a
twenty minutes' ride, and then up the old tumble-down street and
across the little cricket green, in the centre of the town, and then
down through another street, on either side of which were gardens
full of flowers and trees, each group round its villa, most of which,
though pretty, sadly wanted repair, and so up to the Eoman Catholic
Cathedral, which has a fine stone front built in the Italian style.
The three bells were clanging for service. Into it we went, and
found two or three pleasant French priests ; more Irish priests are
coming to the island instead of French, and an Irishman has just
been appointed as the new Bishop. More than nine-tenths of the
negroes in the island are Boman Catholics. There are a few
Wesleyans, and one congregation only of the Church of England.
According to the last report of the Inspector of Schools for the
Leeward Islands — (Mr. Drinkwater, who is here now and was on
board this morning) — the state of education in the island, though
very bad is improving ; not more than six per cent, of the popu-

K 2

132 CRUISE OF ILM.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

lation can read or write. There are numbers of children in the
inland districts growing up in idleness and ignorance, the parents
of every vice. Their fathers and mothers have found the
temptation of squatting on the abandoned coffee plantations and
Crown lands irresistible, and in woods free from any poisonous
reptile, filled with mountain cabbage trees and wild yams, and
abounding with wild animals and birds suitable for food. In the
neighbouring Danish Islands there is a compulsory free education,
and training in field labour at certain hours, but either of these
would be difficult to carry out in Dominica, as roads across the
mountains are so bad.

After leaving the cathedral we came off to the ship in time for
breakfast-lunch. Some of the officers went fishing in the mountain
streams and had very good sport, taking chiefly mullet, similar to
those which they had before caught when fishing in the mountain
streams of Martinique.

Feb. 27th. — Capital bathing from the ship's side in the morning.
After school finished our letters for the mail, which left early in the
afternoon, but required the letters an hour before starting.

Before we left Denmark, last September, Admiral Irminger told
us that he thought we should find Dominica the fairest of all the
West Indian islands, and his words were true. True also did we find
those of Mr. Kingsley, telling of the size, and the endless variety of
form and colour of its vegetation, which is *' of every conceivable
green, or rather of hues ranging from pale yellow through all
greens into cobalt blue; and as the wind stirs the leaves and
sweeps the lights and shadows over hill and glen, all is ever-
changing, iridescent, like a peacock's neck ; till the whole island
from peak to shore seems some glorious jewel — an emerald with
tints of sapphire and topaz, hanging between blue sea and white
surf below, and blue sky and white cloud above." — At Last, p. 42,
And so too we found those of Mr. Tennyson :

** The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns
And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven,
The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes.
The lightning flash of insect and of hird,
The lustre of the long convolvuluses
That coiled around the stately stems, and ran
Even to the limit of the land, the glows
And glories of the broad belt of the world —
All these we saw, ... and heard
The league-long roller thundenng on the reef.
The moving whisper of huge trees that brauch'd
And blossom 'd in the zenitn, or the sweep
Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave.* — Enoch Ardm.

1880. DOMINICA— SCENE OF ERUPTION. 133

Ftb. 28^A. — At 4 a.m. left the ship by moon and starlight, landed

and found our way up to the President's, where Doctor Nicholls met

us and pioneered us on ponies up the Laudat valley, beside its

roaring stream. As the vallej' runs nearly due east we had what

little wind there was in our faces before the day dawned right ahead.

Reached Laudat about 8 A.M. The road to this place is just such

another as we saw the other morning, a mere bridle path on what

was once a broad carriage road cut in the cliff-side, but now

overgrown. We had breakfast in a negro hut which stands on

the edge of the flat table- land of this village ; the bread and

coffee other negroes had carried up for us on their heads

from Roseau. Then started again, and this time along a much

rougher path that led straight through the jungle to Ajoupa,

where, in the bed of the stream, a hut had been made of bamboos

and green boughs. Here we left the ponies and clambered on for

another hour and a half, up through a tangle of forest and jungle,

and over ledges of rock and cliff to the summit and highest point

in the island, Mome Diablotin, 5,314 feet high, nearly a thousand

feet higher than the highest point in Qreat Britain, Ben Nevis. On

one side we looked down over the country as on an outspread map.

Mountains stretch away beyond mountains covered with the luxuriant

vegetation of the tropics, and with their sides brilliantly lighted up

by the rays of the sun, in strong contrast with the dark masses of

shadow thrown on the deep ravines beyond. These valleys and

ravines are all covered with extensive forests of valuable timber

trees ; we hear there are nearly 200 sorts in Dominica. Amongst

these is the locust-tree (which resembles mahogany bnt is mnch

harder) ; the yellow satinwood ; the mastic (often six feet in diameter

and one of the most valuable) ; the cedar ; the coccalaba (which

becomes hardened by age so that tools can scarcely work it) ; black

and white ironwood ; and the gommier, the largest and loftiest tree

the island produces — nearly all the canoes in Dominica are made

of this wood, the white resin that exudes from its trunk is much

used for torches, and in the Catholic churches as incense. Of all

these the growth is hurried on with extraordinary rapidity by the

heat and light, and continual supply of moisture^(the rainfall here

is seventy-two inches in the year) — but decay is equally rapid.

The destructive process that is in operation goes on with an energy

and activity unknown in temperate climates. Nature, in these

islands assumes her most terrible as well as her most beautiful

forms, for what visitations can be more appalling than the hurricane.

134 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

the earthquake, and the volcanic eruptions, whose continual attacks
leave only desolation and ruin behind. The trees of tlie woods
for the last half mile had been thickly covered with ash
and cinders and grey powdered mud, until on arriving at
the edge of the ledge we found them all bleached white. We
looked out over and down into the great basin, seven square
miles in extent, which was fringed with nothing but bleached
stumps and bare boughs of trees. In several places we saw
the smoke still curling up from the spot where the boiling lake
had been, whose waters had been ejected by the late eruption and
had wrought all this terrible destruction. Evidently the sides of
the hill have, since the eruption two months ago, slid down and
blocked up the lake. Here there was more smoke curling up from
the sulphur springs to which we clambered down over what seemed
like white marl, and found the temperature of the water 21 2^
It was very hot indeed climbing back again in the noonday sun
up these bare white and muddy cliflfs. On arriving at the top we
sat down on the ledge a while, and chatted with our negro guides,
and then went down into the woods again to the hut at Ajoupa ;
where we were very glad to rest and get some cool lime-drinks. We
afterwards trotted back to town. The same afternoon another party
rode out with the President to the sulphur springs, on the west
side of the island. During the late eruption the whole sky was
darkened as by a cloud, and the people on coming out of church
found all the houses and gardens in Roseau covered for a couple
of inches with the thick grey dust that was showered upon them.
This afternoon a sloop went ashore to the north of the town ; the
captain sent a party away, with the first lieutenant, to try and
get her oflf, but the party returned that evening without succeeding.

Feb. 29th. — A quiet day on board. Roman Catholics to early
mass ashore, and our own services as usual.

March IsL — Port-watch again away, and before the dinner-hoiu"
had succeeded in getting the sloop afloat. In the afternoon the
ship's company had a cricket match on the green, ashore, starboard-
versiis port-watch. Each side had two innings, but the match
ended in a draw. In the president's garden there is a capital
lawn-tennis ground, a level piece of grass under palms and mango
trees, and of this, during our stay, the officers of the ship have
made free use. The President came off and dined in the evening.

[The Leeward, or Northern group of the Antilles, consists of the
five presidencies of Dominica, Montserrat, Nevis with St. Kitts,

1880. THE FEDERATED LEEWARD ISLANDS. 135

Antigua, and the Virgin Islands. These were formed into one
Federal colony in 1871, under one Governor, who resides at Antigua>
the most important, though Dominica is the largest, of the group.
They had previously all been united under a common legislature
as far back as the reign of William and Mary, but the union was
dissolved in 1798. In 1832, Sir William Colebrook attempted to
revive it. The present federation is merely a restoration of the old
system of Government, with this exception, that under the first the
members of the Federal Council were elected directly by the rate-
payers, whereas now they are merely delegates from the several
local legislatures. The five presidencies contain in all a population
of 120,000 ; their united revenue is not equal to that of Barbados.
The neighbourhood of the French islands of Martinique and
Guadeloupe leads to much smuggling; as large an amount of
goods are annually smuggled into these islands by the French as
pay duty. Each Presidency has its own tariflf fixed by its own
island legislature, whose functions after all are more municipal than
anything else. In Dominica it consists of fourteen members (seven
of whom are nominees of the Crown, and seven elected by all rate-
payers of over 25s. a year). The Federal or General Legislature is
elected for three years, and meets once a year at Antigua. It
consists of ten elected and ten members nominated by the Crown.
Of these latter, however, six must be taken, one from each of the
island legislatures. The other ten are elected, four by the island
legislature of Antigua, four by that of St. Kitts and Nevis, two by
that of Dominica. As the same men generally sit in both the
island and general legislatures, it would much simplify matters if
there was one central legislature to perform all the duties that now
pertain to five small centres; and really the functions of each
president could very well be performed by a resident magistrate in
each island. All expenses of the federal colony of the Leeward
Islands are apportioned into sixteen pai-ts, of which five are borne
by Antigua, four by St. Kitts, three by Dominica, two by Nevis ,
one by Montseirat, and one by the Virgin Islands.

It was distinctly provided and contemplated in the British Act
of Parliament of 1871 constituting this federal union, that its
operations should be extended to any other of the West Indian
islands that may desire it. This beginning of federal union, (as
well as that other of the Windward or Southern Antilles group,)
will develop shortly, it is to be hoped, into a larger union that shall
embrace all the British West Indies alike. The political isolation

136 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

of the past, and the difficulty of communication before the days of
steam and telegraphs, have given rise to altogether erroneous
impressions that the islands differ radically from each other in
circumstances and needs. As a matter of fact they are all peopled
by agricultural negro communities, they all produce similar articles
for export, and are all capable of growing sufficient food for local
consumption. The character of the population is practically the
same in all, there being from 2 to 9 per cent, white, from 15 to 20
coloured or cross breeds, and from 83 to 71 per cent, negro and
Indian coolie residents in each. The various islands are, it is true,
in different stages of development, but this is a distinction that
affects their domestic but not their common policies. Under a
Federal Government the local legislatures of each group would
still exist for dealing with local peculiarities. It would be highly
desirable and consonant to the interests of all concerned that there
should be one Qovernor-in-chief for the " United Islands," of whose
appointment it should be a sine qud non that he should visit each
island in turn and reside there a sufficient length of time to see
things for himself. Such personal knowledge and attention would
be necessary in order that each island might obtain the full benefits
of his greater experience and ability, and in many cases his visits
to the smaller islands especially had better be unexpected.

There should be one judicial system for the United British West
Indies, one civil service, one system of customs duties, one of
telegraphic and postage communications ; one federal legislature for
the whole, which, while leaving the local liberties of the flourishing
colonies of Barbados and Trinidad untouched, would conduce to
raise the less flourishing and smaller islands to the same level of
prosperity. As a united body the British West Indian Islands will
be able to do more for one another and for the common good than
they can possibly achieve while isolated. Economy of time and of
labour and of expenditure would be thus insured. The question of
labour supply and immigration is one which alone would justify
union. Such federal union would not only benefit themselves but
the British Empire at large ; for by concerted action whole village
communities from the East might be translated from starvation to
aflBuence on the waste lands of what are now impoverished islands.]

March 2nd, — We were to have started before dawn for a ride
ashore, but were detained by the chief member of the party,
who was sleepy, and thought it was going to rain, so did not
start till 8 A.M., when we found Mr. Eldridge had been up and

1880. DOMINICA— LAND-CRABS. 137

waiting two hours for us. Mounted and rode through the tumble-
down street out to Belle Vue, where we forded the stream and
turned up the valley inland. After crossing some sugar-cane fields
and passing underneath some very tall and old palm-trees we
arrived at the remains of an old sugar-mill. From this point we
struck up the hill-side once more inland ; the path led by some
magnificent tree-ferns, or rather fern-trees, over thirty feet high,
that were growing in the gullies. We gradually mounted the
ridge, and at the top came upon another ruined planter s house on
what would be a fine site for a sanatorium. We descended from
here by a very rough path through the woods to Champs Elys^es,
dismounting in one place to catch a large brown land-crab which
scuttled across the path ; we then tied his claws with string and
brought him home on the saddle-bow. These crabs live in orderly
societies in their retreats in the mountains, and regularly once a
year march down in a body to the sea-side to spawn. They start in
April or May, and are sometimes three months reaching the shore
—which is three or four miles at least from where we caught ours.
Directly the crab reaches the sea it eagerly goes to the water that
the waves may wash oflf the spawn. The eggs are hatched under
the sand, and the old parents remain till the young are old enough
to march, when they set off and lead them up to their haunts
in the hills. In August they begin to fatten and prepare for
moulting, fitting up their burrows with dry leaves and other
materials. They close the entrance and remain inactive until they
get rid of the old shell and are provided with a new one. Next
we found a lot of red raspberries growing wild, which must be
the remains of another planter's garden. At last we came out on
to the beach, along which we made our way back to Roseau, where
the waves rolling in and the sound of the backward draw of the
surf over the pebbles, and in one place a good climb over some
slippery rocks, round a promontory of cliff that projects into the sea,
reminded us much of England. We got on board to breakfast-
lunch. In the evening, after the supper hour, landed small-arm
companies, marines and bluej^Lckets, with field and Qatling guns,
for battalion drill, on the green in the centre of the town, up to
which they marched from the landing-place with band playing,
much to the delight of the negro people. There came to dine that
evening Judge Pemberton, and Mr. Faille, magistrate, member of
the island and also of the Federal legislature, and Messrs. Stedman
and Macintyre, merchants and members of the island legislature.

138 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

March 3rd, — In the afternoon some went to play lawn-tennis at
the president's, and others to the cricket match which our eleven
played against the Dominican Club. Bacchante 154 and the
Dominicans thirty-four. Mail arrived from England in the
evening, fourteen days out. Telegraphed to Prince Waldemar at
St. Thomas, that we hoped to come on there to him.

The fishing here is the best we have met with hitherto at any
of the islands ; the streams for one thing are larger, and so are the
trout, many of them are over a pound each, and with fair luck
four dozen were taken to one rod in a day. The woods too are full
of wood pigeon, wild parrots and other birds.

March 4tth. — Landed at 7 A.M. for our last moraing ride, which
was again up the Laudat valley, but this time to the sulphur
springs. It was a showery morning with fitful gleams of sunshine.
We leave the regular road and turn up through a large plantation .
of lime-trees which, though newly introduced, give promise of
flourishing amazingly. Last year lime juice, cacao, and bay leaves
made up one quarter of the total exports of the island. Dr.
Imray has also introduced, with great success, the Liberian coffee,
which, as the leaves are thicker than the ordinary coffee, does
not take the blight so readily ; this also promises to be another
success for the island. At a ruined sugar-mill we had some
fresh cocoa-nuts, and soon afterwards came in sight of the steam
which was seen curiously curling up from the river bed over the
trees ahead ; it does not apparently injure the vegetation. Arrived
here we dismounted, and walked up the bed of the stream, at a
place where it broadens out, until we came under some dark brown
rocks which overhang it on the left-hand side. Here we heard the
continuous and sonorous bubble-bubble of the water boiling below
before it comes to the surface. The rocks were quite hot to the
hand (though perfectly shaded from the sun by the thick trees
overhead), and were covered with a sort of green slime and
sulphurous deposit, and the water was at boiling point. We visited
three of the springs, one under the rocks, another in the broad bed
of the stream, and a third about twenty feet or so higher up. The
whole of the cliff in this part of the valley is evidently undermined
by volcanic action, and may be expected at some period to collapse.
We returned and got off to the ship before noon, and were to have
sailed the same afternoon, but as there was no wind we had to give
it up. We have stayed at Dominica longer than was at first
intended, on account of the yellow fever, which is prevalent, though

1880. DOMINICA TO ST. THOMAS. 139

mild, at Antigua and St. Kitts, and therefore this is the only
one of the Leeward group which we are able to visit.

According to the original programme for the Bacchante's cruise
we were to have run down from the Leeward Islands, with the trade
on our port beam, to La Guayra and Caraccas, and thence, by
Dutch Cura9oa, turned and sailed up with the trade on our starboard
beam for Jamaica and Cuba. We longed to see that huge cliflfed
and wooded paradise, haunted as it would be with the memories of
Rose Salterne and Frank Leigh. But this too had to be given up
on account of the disturbed state of the Venezuelan Republic,
some members of the Government having just " stuck up " the
chief bank in the place. So, having got on board our few curios
— some large flying beetles as big as birds, with huge horns, and
great stuflfed frogs six inches long (the flesh oflF their hiud-legs is
as white and tender as that oflf the wing of a chicken) — we patiently
wait here till wc can get away under sail. We are becalmed just
as Rodney was under the lee of the highlands of Dominica, which
shut oflf the trade wind that we can see ruflfiiDg the surface of the
water a few miles to the north, if only we could crawl up to it.

March oth, — At 9.30 A.M. weighed under sail, but the weather
being very wet with scarcely a breath of wind, we got no way on
the ship till noon. There came round the ship many of the same
sort of canoes as those we had seen at St. Vincent, each hollowed
out of one block of wood, with two boards sometimes built on as a
gunwale ; they are very light and rock about a good deal, and look
as if they would capsize, but apparently are buoyant. Towards
evening the weather cleared up and we saw Guadeloupe on the
starboard beam.

March 6th, — Saw the three peaks of Montserrat in the distance,
and the single peak of St. Kitts closer to us. It is said to resemble,
at least it did to Columbus, his patron saint, the giant St.
Christopher, with the infant Christ on his shoulder. We sighted
Nevis on the starboard beam, 3,500 feet high, where Captain
Horatio Nelson, on 11th March, 1787, then senior captain on
this station in H.M.S. Boreas, married Mrs. Frances Herbert
Nisbet and spent his honeymoon. She was the niece of Mr.
Herbert the Governor of Nevis, but had been left a widow by
Dr. Nisbet at the age of eighteen, with a little lad three years
old, who lived afterwards to save Nelson's life as a young oflScer
at TeneriflFe (p. 41). The Duke of Clarence, who was then
on the station, gave the bride away; the Boreas returned to

140

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1880.

England later in the year, and Nelson took his wife down to his
father's Norfolk parsonage. He was at this time twenty-nine

DOMINICA TO ST. THOMAS AND JAMAICA.

S. LueuO

S.VlMtltl

mi-

Datk

From Pbevious Noon. | At Noon.

Temperature.

Distance.

Sea. I Air.

Courtie.

Wind.

Lat.

Long.

Mar.

Sail.

Steam.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon.

6 p.m.

w. .

N.W.

..•

N.E. 1-2

15-18

61-25

N. 47 W.

168

N.E. 4-6

17-12

63-33

...

N.E. by E.
5-6

...

s.w. i s.

N.E. 4-5

17-52

55-22

S. 82 W.

173

E.N.E. 6-6 17-29

68-21

S. 88 W.

143

E. 5-6

17-27

70-50

N. 88 W.

163

E. 6-8-6

17-80

73-41

12
To

N. 85 W.

152
10

E.S.E. 4

17-51

7615

940

tal distance.

36 mU

es.

years of age, but had been twice in love before, once with a Canadian
lady in 1782, and once with a clergyman's daughter at Paris in the

1881. ST. THOMAS. 14i

following year. He had already served at the North Pole as well
as in the East Indies, and in a former commission as lieutenant in
these West Indies, from 1777 to 1781. During the forenoon we
passed over the Saba bank where we saw the bottom clearly —
white sand and coral — at nine fathoms. By noon we had run 168
miles. At 5.15 p.m. observed Sainte Croix on the port bow, and
at 11.30 P.M. sighted St. Thomas's light.

March 7th. — Shortly after 2 A.M. came to in nine fathoms out-
side the harbour of St. Thomas — one of the fifty islands called
" Virgin " by Columbus, after St. Ursula and her companions. He
sighted them on his second voyage, 1493 ; they were held by Dutch
and English buccaneers till settled by Danes in 1672. The Danish
islands surrendered to the English in 1801 and again in 1807, but
were restored in 1815. Saw the sun rise over this bare-looking
island. The bright little town of Charlotte Amalia (so named after
the Danish queen) stands at the head of the bay, straggling up the
hills at its back ; the houses have white walls and green blinds, and
red-shingle roofs ; some are in gardens. The ships and mail steamers
are anchored in front of it, and the bowsprit of the Dagmar just
shows from behind one island on the port hand. The bay has
evidently been the crater of an extinct volcano, and we are looking
into it from the outside through the gap where the sides of the
crater gave way and admitted the sea. The Dannebrog is fly-
ing over the Government House and fort, and fluttering too from
the many flagstafi^s, one of which, just as in Denmark, every house
seems to possess. At 8 a.m. we too hoist the Danish flag to our
main masthead, and salute the white cross on the crimson ground
with twenty-one guns. After church Prince Waldemar and
Captain Briin came off to the BaccharUe, and after going all over
the ship took us both back to the i9a^?war, where we spent the day
but did not land. In the evening Prince Waldemar with Captain
Briin and Lieutenant Ebers dined on board the Bacchante, and there
was some talk of his going with us to Jamaica, but the difficulty
was in his rejoining the Danish corvette here, as he would arrive
in that island too late for the returning mail steamer, and the
Bacchante was to proceed from thence to Bermuda.

March Sth, — ^At daylight (6.30 A.M.), weighed and proceeded under
sail, shaping course south-west by south, the wind being well from
the east, so that we were able to set port stunsails. Running before
the trade we make between six and seven knots, and pass the other
Danish island of Sainte Croix away in the distance on the port

142 CRUISE OF H.M,S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

beam (purchased by.the Danes from the French for 75,000/.) ; the
two towns on the island are named after their twin kings, who always
reign alternately — Frederickstadt and Christianstadt. After we
got clear of St. Thomas's on the starboard hand (which has quite a
different appearance to any other West Indian island we have seen
yet, being apparently unwooded, bare and unfruitful), we came
upon little Crab Island, and then sailed during the morning on past
the long Spanish island of Porto Rico. The social and economical
history of this island is peculiar. It is a good deal smaller than
Jamaica, but it contains no fewer than 650,000 inhabitants,
whereas Jamaica contains only 560,000. The majority are people
of colour, that is a mixture of Spanish and Indian blood ; and instead
of being planters carry on a thriving pastoral business, and pass
for a hardy, dexterous, though not very industrious class, dwelling
among their flocks and herds like the Boers of the Cape. The
island has also a very fair export trade in sugar and coffee. It
was off here that Sir John Hawkins, and it was not far from here,
off Porto Bello, that Sir Francis Drake, each breathed forth their
manly spirits ; and beneath these waves sank to rest all that was
mortal of those two noble sons of Devon, far from home, it is
true, but in the very centre of that new world that had fired their
ambition, and still in quest of honour and of wealth for themselves
and Queen. At St. Domingo too, close by, by a curious coincidence,
the body of the great navigator Columbus was buried in 1506 in
the cathedral at St. Domingo, where his ashes were re-discovered
in 1877.

March 9th. — At five A.M. watched out of the stern ports the sun
rise ; first there was an orange tinge over the whole sky in the
east, and then the new moon rose, apparently going to join Venus,
which was the star shining just above; then this orange colour
faded all quite away, and just before the sun rose the sky seemed
dead grey again : at last up burst the king in all his glory from the
sea. The coast of Porto Rico, sixty miles distant from Haiti,
was still visible in the distance for half an hour after dawn.
Reading Hazard's Haiti all day while not in school as we
run along under its southern coast, which is 400 miles long.
The history of the island is about as sad as that of any of
the West Indies. " Haiti '* is the old Carib for " mountainous
country." There were over three million Caribs in the island
when Columbus named it "Little Spain" in his first voyage,
1492 ; and on its northern shore was established the first

H.M.8. BACCHANTS UNDER ALL POSSIBLE SAIL. Vol. I. p. 143.

1881. ST. THOMAS TO JAMAICA. 143

Spanish colony in the new world. In thirty years the Spaniards
by incredible cruelties had exterminated them all; and as
America became known withdrew to richer fields, leaving Haiti
almost depopulated. Spain began to import negroes in 1525 to take
the place of the Caribs as labourers. The whole island is about the
size of Scotland or Ceylon. The eastern half remained^Spanish, and
from Hispaniola was re-named San Domingo; the western half was
taken by the French in 1665. Before the "red fool-fury of the
Seine " it was a model colony ; at that time a third of the whole
commerce of France was with Haiti ; France was drawing as much
wealth from the eastern half of this single island as England drew
from India, or Spain from Mexico and Peru ; but at the Revolution
in 1790 it became the scene of frightful anarchy and bloodshed,
and such has it been more or less ever since, torn by contending
parties, an example of self-government by the free and independent
negro, sunk in misery, cannibalism and superstition of the most
sensual and degrading character. Yet it might be so different —
in all the wide world there is not a country more suited to
agriculture than Haiti ; the natural products are ahnost unlimited ;
mahogany and logwood forests cover the hills; minerals abound,
but none are worked. The theories of Liberty, Fraternity, and
Equality, a heaven-sent gospel in themselves, have in the way they
have here been applied and carried out, turned a Paradise of God
and " the cradle of the new world " into an Augean stable, and a
very hell upon earth. In the afternoon got up parallel bars for
gymnastic exercises.

March 10th. — Wedding-day of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
What a wonderful thing this trade wind is ; over the blue sea it
comes unceasingly without a check or pause by day or night, and
we- have been running steadily along under all possible sail ever
since we left St. Thomas's, and making between six and seven knots.
At 2 P.M. the high and mist-covered hills of the southern part of
Haiti are on our starboard beam, and at 4.30 p.m. we passed Alta
Vela, which, as far as we can see, is not a bit like a ship under
sail, unless it be a sort of felucca as seen from the east ; the
island, the southernmost point of Haiti, consists of bare rocks with
apparently some houses on the north side. The cliffs of San
Domingo that approach it look also bare and desolate.

March 12th. — ^This running along under a bright sun is the very
perfection of sailing. Saw a lot of flying-fish and came in sight of
Morant lighthouse, the easternmost point of Jamaica, about 10 A.M.,

144 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

and soon afterwards passed H.M.S. Nat'thampton (Captain John
A. Fisher), and saluted the flag of Vice- Admiral Sir L. McClintock
with fifteen guns and lowered the royals: he is proceeding to
Bermuda. The flagship being painted white looks far shorter
than she really is. Passed Morant Bay at 1 p.m. and observed H.M.
schooner Sparrow-hawk, lying at anchor there. All the afternoon
had splendid view of the Blue Mountains, (the highlands of Jamaica
7,000 feet in height and the backbone of the island,) as we sail
along its southern shore. Columbus first saw them 3rd May,
1494, on his second voyage out here: he took possession of
Jamaica, but for eight years afterwards no European set foot thereon.
When he came again on his fourth and last voyage to the Indies,
by foretelling an eclipse of the sun he easily reduced the natives
to submission. They were a gentle race, sunburnt, brown, tall,
well-proportioned, but were gradually exterminated by the
Spaniards, being slowly roasted alive, and tortured in every
imaginable way. Las Casas describes what he saw ; 60,000 had
perished in sixty years and the worthy man proposed to import
blacks from Africa in order to relieve the wretched Indians from
their bondage.

At 3.15 P.M. down screw, and at 4 P.M. commenced steaming. At
6 P.M. shortened and furled sails. Just before sunset we saluted
the flag of the Commodore, Hon. W. J. Ward, which we could just
distinguish on board the Urgent, over and beyond the sandy spit
of Port Royal. Here and there on this barren sandy spit are
great bushes of prickly pear and other cacti, covering large spaces
of the bank with their impenetrable spines, and in a few spots wave
groups of graceful cocoa-nut palms ; all along the high-water line on
the beach lie heaps of sea-weeds drying in the sun, and fan corals.
It looks a desolate spot enough. We steal up to this through
the kays or black reefs, over which the waves are lazily breaking ;
we round its western end and find here H.M. ships Tourmaline
(Captain R. Dennistoun), Druid (Captain W. R. Kennedy), Tamar
(Captain Liddell), Fantdme (Commander W. C. Karslake), Plover
(Commander H. B. Stewart). Boom goes the gun from the
Urgent, telling that the sun's rim has just disappeared be-
neath the horizon, crack goes the rifie of the sentry on the
forecastle of each man-of-war in response, and, ere the last notes
of the buglers have died away, down from each ship's peak
descends for the night the White Ensign and St. George's Cross,
their folds hauled on the deck by the signalman on duty. We were

1880.

AT JAMAICA.

145

to have picked up No. 1 buoy, which the Northampton had just
vacated, but not liking to lower one of the freshly-painted boats,
sent the men down on to the buoy over the bows of the ship ;
they had some difficulty in making fast. At the same time the
chief engineer coming up from the engine-room reported that the
starting gear had gone wrong and that he could not go either ahead
or astern as required (and it had been now a few turns astern, now
a few turns ahead for the last fifteen minutes), so ultimately had to
give up making fast for this night ; let go an anchor at 8 P.M., dusk
having thrown a kind veil over our surroundings and proceedings.

AT JAMAICA.

Date.

Wind.

TlEMPKRATURE.

Sea.

Air.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Mar.

E.S.E. 6

14S.

S.E. 5-6

S.E. 8-5

S.E. 8-2

S.E. 3-6

S.E. 8-4

S.E. 3-4

21S.

Variable 12

March lith. — Weighed anchor and secured to No. 1 buoy off
Port RoyaL H.M. tender Tyrian went up to Kingston, taking the
commodore and the captain, with Mr. Musgrave (the governors
private secretary) and Mr. Walker (the colonial secretary), to call
on Mr. Newton (the acting governor). They returned in the
evening to Port Royal.

Kingston, only nine miles south-east of Spanish Town, stands
on the north side of its land-locked bay, which is about six miles
long and two wide (it is five miles south-west from Kingston to Port
Royal), up and down which rush many small sailing boats, with their
high cotton sails, from the town, to trade with the Queen's ships
lying here. They heel over to the land or sea breeze ; if the breeze
is stiff the negroes call it " a three-man breeze,*' if moderate only " a
two-man breeze," from the number of the negro crew required to sit
out on the weather gunwale to prevent capsizing. A narrow, slightly

VOL. I. L

146 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880

elevated spit of land nine miles in length, never more than a few
hundred yards broad, called the " Palisades/' runs east and west,
nearly parallel with the coast line, acting as a sort of breakwater.
At the western end, where it widens out, stands Port Royal.

Jamaica is distant 4,000 miles almost due south-west from
England ; the mail, which goes twice a month, makes the passage
on an average in seventeen days. The island is 160 miles long
and 50 broad — about one-ninth the size of Cuba and one quarter
that of Haiti, or about two-thirds that of Wales. During the
height of its prosperity never more than two-fifths were under
cultivation. It was sighted first on its north side near Dry
Harbour, by Columbus in his second voyage. May, 1494, on
coming eastwards from Cuba. Spanish Town was not founded
till 1525 ; it was taken by the English in 1596, but restored to
Spain ; again taken in 1635, and again given up. The continual
hostility of the Spaniards to all other Europeans in the West
Indies, and the relentless cruelty which accompanied their do-
minion, together with the enormous advantages which English
planters were reaping in Barbados (where they were making
more than fifty per cent, on their capital at that time) induced
Cromwell to resolve upon a bold stroke which was worthy of his
statesmanship. This was the conquest of St. Domingo (Haiti), then
the most valuable of the Antilles. Most of it was in the possession of
the Spaniards, though the French buccaneers had settlements in the
west of the island. Cromwell sent out an expedition of 10,000 men
under Admiral Penn and General Venables ; but they were repulsed
by the Spaniards. Unwilling however to return to England they
attacked Jamaica before its inhabitants had heard the news of
their defeat. It was at that time in a poor condition ; but within
a hundred years after the English took it it became one of the
richest places in the world. They rounded Cagway Point May the
10th, 1655 ; from that day to this it has remained English. The
Spaniards had held the island 160 years, during which time the
principal product of the island was cacao. The troops who had
won it were soon joined by settlers from home, for Cromwell was
bent on colonising Jamaica ; and to encourage its trade issued a
proclamation, in 1655, that all goods should be transported to the
island duty free for seven years ; and that no tax should be placed
on colonial productions for ten years. In 1656 Irish and Scotch
*'idle, masterless persons, robbers, vagabonds, male and female,"
were, by Cromwell's orders, gathered together and as labourers sent

1880. JAMAICA— PORT ROYAL. 147

thither. The great Protector died, however, without sanctioning
the importation of negroes. Point Cagway, as it was called by the
English, was a corruption of Spanish Caguaya, which in its turn
was a representation of a former Indian name. It became in the
disorganised condition of the Indies the mercantile depot of the
west, the chief place of resort for privateers, the grand treasure-
house of their prizes and plunder ; here the buccaneer of whatever
nationality he might be was welcomed by the English as an enemy
of the Spaniard. Charles II. was proclaimed king here on the
29th May, 1661, and the place thenceforth was called Port Royal,
and two forts were erected, named from him and his brother. Fort
Charles and Fort James. On the latter the date 1670 still stands ;
the former was submerged in the earthquake. The Duke of York
had the exclusive right to import 3,000 negroes annually to the
West Indies. The first " Assembly " was convened 1664 ; and Sir
Henry Morgan, the gallant buccaneer, became governor. He had
been knighted for his successful raid at Panama. The children of
British subjects had the same privileges as if bom within the
realm ; emigration was encouraged in every way and the arrival of
a considerable number of Jews gave an impetus to commerce. All
kinds of curious people settled on the island, who applied their
best talents to gratifjring the licentious passions of the freebooters,
and earned a golden harvest thereby.

On the 7th of June, 1692, between eleven o'clock and noon, in
three minutes. Port Royal was, with 3,000 of the people, shaken by
an earthquake off its sandy spit into the sea ; the assembly was
sitting at the time ; the sky was clear and the air serene, and the
people wholly unprepared ; its old site is marked by the " Church
Buoy " moored over the sunken church. The survivors fled across
the bay and founded Kingston ; but Port Royal lifted its head
again and increased. In 1702 came the French from Haiti to
plunder; Benbow beat them off. In 1703 it was destroyed by
fire; and then in 1722 harried by hurricane; but it was only
when, in 1815, the place was once more consumed by fire, that no
further attempts were made to rebuild Port Royal as the capital.

We dined with the Commodore in the evening. He had given
a general invitation to the officers of the other ships to come
ashore in the evening ; many availed themselves of this, and we
had a pleasant time playing billiards, varied with music and
singing, in the cool rooms and verandahs of the spacious Admiralty
House, which possesses wide passages and plenty of doors and

L 2

143 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

windows before and behind, so that whatever* breeze there is
always blows through it.

March 14^A. — Service on the upper deck. Here for the first time
in our cruise we have become acquainted with the striking alternations
of the land and sea breeze ; all day long the trade blows in from
the sea until sunset, when it lulls, and there is an absolute calm
without a breath of air stirring for about one or two hours ; at the
end of which time the land breeze reaches us as we lie here, blow-
ing off the island, and so continues constant and steady all night
through till the following morning after divisions ; then it falls and
there is another lull mthout a breath of air, usually till about
10 A.M. This, is the most trying and overpowering heat of the day,
till the sea breeze once more sets in, and holds its own till evening.
This change happens almost everyday with the regularity of clock-
work ; some days, however, the land breeze is strong enough to
last on almost to noon. The cause of this land and sea breeze is,
that when the sun goes down the land cools more quickly than the
water ; and so the air over the land becomes colder and therefore
heavier than the air over the sea, which remains warmer and
therefore lighter for some little time longer. Thereupon the heavier
air presses out from the land and this is the " land breeze." The next
morning the sun heats the land and the air hanging over it more
quickly than he heats the sea and the air over that ; hence, the
balance is reversed, and now the air over the sea, being heavier and
colder, thrusts away the warmer and lighter air over the land ; and
this is the '* sea breeze." This explanation, of course, holds good in
any warm climate where there is a great difference in the temperature
between the day and night. But where, as at Jamaica for instance,
the trade wind is blowing constantly day and night out at sea, when
the turn of the sea breeze sets in it is strengthened and kept con-
stant by this ever vigorous current of air which acts as a thrusting
spring.

March loth. — At 6.30 A.M. sailed H.M. ships Tamar and Flamingo.
At 10 A.M. H.M.S. Druid left under sail, passing close under our
stern and looking uncommonly well, for Carthagena. Captain
Kennedy is very keen about the possibility of discovering a large
amount of treasure which is said to be hidden away from the times
of the old buccaneers in a cave in an island there or thereabouts.
Many yams have been told him by an old man who professes to have
entered the cave and seen the golden coin and silver plate lying
there in heaps, and who, for a consideration, has offered to show the

1880. JAMAICA— PORT ROYAL. 149

way. The Bacchante is coaling ship ; from this we were able to
get away at 4 P.M., and went on board H.M.S. Urgent, where
Commander Warry showed us over the old two decker covered in with
a double wooden roof to keep her decks cool. Everything seemed
beautifully clean, and cool, and we enjoyed sitting in his cabin with
its wide and airy old-fashioned stern ports and looking at his photos
and curios. After wishing a pleasant voyage to Commander
Stewart of the Plover, he went off to the ship and we went ashore
to the recreation-room. As we did so we pulled round the
Plover, as she was now under way with her paying-off pendant
streaming astern, homeward bound for England. Met a good many
oflScers in the bowling-alleys and large, airy billiard-rooms and
verandahs there. This club has been started, not only for the
convenience of oflScers, but chiefly for the use of the bluejackets,
who have their reading-rooms, bowling-alleys, &c., instead of
frequenting the horrors of Port Royal. These ought all to be swept
away ; Government should buy up the miserable rotten dens just
outside the dockyard, burn the whole mess, and keep the ground clear
ever after. General leave is never given to the men of the Queen's
ships while lying at Port Royal, they always proceed round to Montigo
Bay or Fort Antonio, on the north side of the island, where there is
plenty of open country and the men can enjoy themselves as they
list. There is a large naval hospital ashore here.

March 16^A. — Still coaling ship all day till the evening, when his
Excellency, the acting Governor, and Miss Newton and Miss
Musgrave, the Commodore and his secretary, and Captain
Dennistoun came on board and dined.

March 17th. — Left the ship with a large party in the Commo-
dore's steam-launch, some going up to Kingston to play in the
cricket match and others up to the King's House with us. We
landed at 12.30 P.M. Mr. Kemble, the custos of Kingston, and
other gentlemen met us at the steps, at the foot of the statue
of Rodney, removed here from Spanish Town. Each of the
fourteen parishes in Jamaica has a municipal board and a civil
officer styled a '* custos ; " he is designated " honourable,'' and has
the custody of the parochial records. The island is divided into
three counties, Surrey at the eastern end, Middlesex in the middle,
and Cornwall at the extreme western end. We drove through the
town, noticing first the large new iron markets on the right. The
streets were filled with negroes cheering, and waving coloured hand-
kerchiefs, and running and jumping about in all their glossy and

150 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

grinning robustness and vigour. On either side, the pavement for
foot passengers is raised some distance above the level of the road,
and runs under an irregular colonnade which supports the upper
story of the houses that usually project above it They are mostly
of wood ; the whole arrangement with a high wind would bum like
tinder. (Kingston is periodically ravaged by conflagrations, and yet
has no fire brigade, but after each visitation appeals to England for
help.) We passed the red-brick church of St. Andrew, where Admiral
Benbow, better known as " old Benbow," is buried under a slab of
blue marble or slate on the left-hand side of the chancel near the altar
rails, his coat of arms, three arrows and a bow, his crest a seagull :
" Here lyeth interred the body of John Benbow, Esq., Admiral of
the White, a true pattern of English courage, who lost hys life in
defence of hys Queene and country, November y* 4th, 1702, in the
52nd year of hys age, by a wound in hys leg received in an en-
gagement with Mens. Du Casse, being much lamented." ^ In the
churchyard lies Sir Henry Morgan, the buccaneer. Then the road
leads by several old red-brick houses each of three or more stories
high in Queen Anne's style, exactly like those in England of the
same period except that there are no chimneys. They have often a
double flight of steps up to the door. The windows with their
small gla^s panes must be ill-adapted to the climate, and rather
hot without any shade or verandah. All the streets are at right
angles to each other. Those that run north and south begin at
the harbour, so that one end of them is sea and the other country ;

* The wounds were received on the 21 st of Aiieust in that year, when with one
ship he engaged a French squadron of five ships which threatened one of our West
India islands. This action commenced on the 19th of Augast, when the captains of
five out of the seven ships which sailed with Benbow refused to assist the Admiral^
and letting their vessels drop astern left him with only one ship besides his own to
fight his adversaries. All that dav these two vessels, the Breda and the Buby,
maintained the unequal contest. The Bitby becoming disabled was sent to Jamaica
to refit, and on the 21st old Benbow renewed the battle single-handed, with one
ship against five. Three times in person did he board the French admiral's sliip,
and three times was he driven back wounded in the face and in the arm ; and, with
his right leg shattered by a chance shot, he lay on deck in a cot giving his
orders. When some one expressed sorrow that his leg was broken, Benbow answered,
" I am sorry for it too ; but I had rather have lost them both than have seen dis-
honour brought upon the English nation. But, do you hear ? if another shot should
take them off, beiiave like brave men, and fight it out." All this time the five
captains remained looking on at a respectful distance in their ships. Benbow at last
extricated the Breda and sailed to Jamaica, where the five captains were tried by
court-martial, by whose sentence two of them were shot and one cashiered. Admiral
Du Casse, who led the French squadron, wrote a letter to Benbow when the fight
was over. " Sir," he said, " I had little hope on Monday last but to have supped
in your cabin, bnt it pleased God to order it otherwise, and I am thankful for it.
As for those cowardly captains who deserted you, hang them up ; for, by God, they
deserve it— Yours, &c., Du Casse."

1880. JAMAICA— KINGSTON. 151

the bouses are very irregular, large and small, repaired and
unrepaired, being mixed up togetber. Tbere are generally a few
feet of space between tbese bouses, from wbicb acacias or palms
peep out : and tbe crimson or purple bourgainvillea seems ratber
common. At tbe top of tbe street is tbe Central Park witb a granite
statue of Lord Metcalfe, erected in 1842, be being Governor at
tbe time of tbe emancipation of tbe slaves. The road out to King's
House (which used to belong to tbe Bishop, and stands about four
miles outside tbe town in its own grounds) is uncommonly dusty, the

JAMAICAN OAOTDS AMD PmOUIlT HEDOI8.

dust lying on it two or three inches deep. It runs by many modem
detached villas (most have green verandahs and stand in their own
gardens, rich witb every colour of plant and creeper), and passes
between tall cactus hedges, some with great fingered stalks four or
five inches in diameter, and fifteen feet high, which are in some
places broken for a bit where tbere is a profusion of blue-flowered
plumbago, and in others by what looks like two hedges of pine-apple
plants without fruit. This plant is called pinguin, and appears to
be a sort of cross between pine-apple and aloe. As they grow

152 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

thickly on the ground, their spiky points make a very im-
penetrable fence ; and their long, thin, yellowish green leaves are
edged with a formidable array of large prickles. When the plants
get well established the leaves turn brilliant crimson near the end,
while the very tip of the leaf is golden yellow. We pass many
barefooted negroes, most of them women, going into town with
baskets on their heads, and a peculiar jaunty gait. The erect-
ness with which they carry themselves is due in great measure
to their throwing the head and shoulders back to sustain the
weight which they thus bear, often consisting of fifty-six. pounds of
provisions, yams, &c. How many English or Scotch women would
be physically able to bear such a burden for ten or fifteen miles !
They carry their shoes and put them on before entering the town
for show, but for walking in the country they prefer the freedom
of bare feet, just as Scotch boys do. Away inland rise the mount-
ains, green to their summits, with lights and shadows diversified on
their ravines and ridges which tower one above the other. We
can see the white hut-barracks of Newcastle clustering high upon
one of the hills.

Mr. Newton has arranged our rooms for' us very pleasantly.
He is the brother of Professor Newton, who was a great friend of
Canon Kingsley's at Magdalene College at Cambridge, and who has
one of the finest collection of birds in Europe. There is a beautiful
verandah, broader even than that at Trinidad, round both stories of
the house, shaded with sun blinds and creepers, and furnished with
cane lounging-chairs and tables for writing and reading. There
j^e no doors to any of the rooms, but small shutters of lattice work
instead, which, hung on hinges on each side of the doorway, meet
when closed in the middle, and hook. The shutters are each
about three feet deep, and thus leave the broad space of the doorway
both above and below them absolutely free and open for the current
of air. All the floors and furniture are of the dark unpolished
native mahogany. It is much cooler here than on board ship.
Ashwin, a midshipman from the Druid, who has badly sprained his
ankle, is staying up here, which is very jolly; he has the next room
to ours. At lunch we tasted several new things ; great shrimps in
jelly with cray fish, and a refreshing drink of granadillo seeds,
something like those of melons ; these mixed with a little sugar and
sherry, and taken from a wineglass are very nice ; turtle, of course,
came for dinner, but the Jamaica pines are not much, not so good
as those grown under glass in England. Afterwards we drove down

1880. JAMAICA— KING'S HOUSE. 153

with Mr. Newton to see the cricket match on the Up-park camp
ground by the old barracks, two long lines of buildings, two stories
high, of red brick, with window-sashes painted white and small
glass panes, built in the early Georgian days, when Jamaica was
esteemed the brightest jewel in the crown, and a Jamaican planter
was synonymous with an Indian Nabob for the possession of
fabulous wealth. Bacchante scored 31 runs first innings, Kingstown
Club, 110; they put us in again, and we got 68 for three wickets;
we were thus thoroughly well beaten. A shore-going eleven has
always many more chances of practising together than a ship's
eleven can possibly have. We stayed here some time sitting
under the shade of the huge cotton tree, up which Tom Cringle
of former days climbed, and afterwards described his feelings in his
well-known Log,

The Commodore and Capt. Dennistoun, who are staying at Mary-
field, close by King's House, have Christian and Fitzgerald as their
guests, and come across the garden for all meals, &c., so we are
a large party and very comfortable. Mr. Newton has asked up six
more midshipmen from the Bacchante, so that the gunroom must
be nearly empty now. There is a capital large swimming bath
shaded from the sun where we had a good swim before dinner,
after which there was a small reception, and the Governor introduced
us to most of the people. At night the thermometer went down
to 61°.

March ISth, — All up early bathing. In the afternoon there was
a garden party and plenty of lawn-tennis. In the evening dinner
was served outside in the verandah, which was beautifully cool and
nice ; the thermometer was down to 61° again. A quantity of walking-
sticks of all sorts of woods were brought up for us to choose from,
amongst others several of the pimento or pepper tree. These last
are very much used for umbrella handles. Between four and five
thousand bundles of these (valued at 15,000 dollars), each bundle
containing from 500 to 800 sticks, have been exported in one year
to the United States and England.

March 19th, — Left King's House at 11.30 A.M. and drove into
Kingston past the Half-way-Tree House with a pretty church close
by,and then left at twelve o'clock by a special train for Spanish Town.
A party of officers from the ship met us at the station. The rail-
way runs at first through low sandy scrub covered with acacia
bushes : after a while these grow higher and trees begin to be
mingled with the mimosas and cactuses. After crossing one or

154 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

two little rivers the railway enters a large tract of marshy ground
with mangroves and creeks of water under their straddling branches.
At last this marshy ground gives way to large flat fields of coarse
grass, dotted with large trees : which were nearly everywhere
bearded with a grey hair-like moss growing in tufts along the
branches. The whole run of over thirteen miles took about
twenty minutes.

On leaving the train we got into carriages which were waiting
for us, and drove through Spanish Town, with its red-brick
Cathedral and imposing old Government Buildings in the square,
with pillared Ionic porticoes. It was built by the son of Columbus
in 1525 and named "St. James of the Plain," to distinguish it
from St. James of Cuba. The English on arrival, in 1655, called
it Spanish Town. It is six miles from the nearest point of the sea.
In 1754 the seat of government was removed from Spanish
Town to Kingston ; there it remained only for four years, when it
was shifted back again, and in 1763 these great buildings were
completed. In 1872 the seat of government was finally moved to
Kingston. The fine marble statue by Bacon of Lord Rodney, the
saviour of the West Indies by his victory over the French in 1782,
has since been removed to Kingston, and now stands by the landing
steps there ; the vacant site it once occupied here and its empty
canopy and pillared screen still fill the side of the square opposite
the old King's house. In front were two long bronze French
thirty-two pounders taken out of the Ville de Paris, one of them
bearing the name of " Louis Charles de Bourbon, Compte d*Eu,
Due d'Aumale, 4th May, 1 748. Ultima rcUio regum." This deserted
group of buildings is really the whole of the town, which without
them would be quite a small village. Here and there a few houses
half boarded up, left to dirt and squalor, are falling gradually to
their last end. A third side of the square is occupied by what
was the Parliament House, which has been the scene of many
strange and unseemly proceedings and much waste of public pro-
perty. In 1864, out of a population of half a million, under two
thousand had votes ; the great body of the population was un-
represented, twenty-five members were elected by less than thirty
votes each ; ten members were returned by 162 votes. For thirty
years the character of the house had been deteriorating. The out-
break occurred in October 1865, supported by the blacks in Haiti,
and it was intended to massacre all whites. This was put down.
In January 1866 Sir Henry Storks came out as Governor, and on

1880. JAMAICA— TAXATION. 155

the 10th of that month the House of Assembly, which consisted in
full of forty-seven members, voted its own decease, having existed
for 202 years, Mr. Cardwell being Secretary of State for the
Colonies at the time. Jamaica has been since then a Crown colony,
and is governed practically from Downing Street, under a Governor
and a Coimcil of eighteen, nine of whom are official and nine non-
official members, these last elected from nine districts by about
9,000 electors. Under this regime the condition of the island at
first steadily and visibly improved. The value of imports gradually
and steadily increased 60 per cent. For eight years successively
the revenue considerably exceeded the expenditure; popular educa-
tion was extended, and the Church of England disestablished in
1870. Coolie labour has been introduced to the great advantage
of the negro. Coffee, for which the dry red sandy loam of the hills
is just adapted, has been much planted. Tobacco is becoming a
valuable export, many Cubans coming over to cultivate it here, on
account of the insecurity of the Spanish dominion in their own
island ; the soil is the same as that of Cuba, and no reason exists
why, if it be properly managed, it should not compete with that of
the larger island.

[In 1880 the public debt had been reduced from 719,000/. to
485,000/. There had been no increase of taxation since 1867,
while the savings bank deposits were nearly four times as great.
But these indications of rapid financial CLmelioration and social
success which attended the measures adopted by Mr. Cardwell and
Mr. Forster for the reform of the constitution of the island, then an
insolvent colony almost in a condition of social civil war, have not
been since borne out. Although the population of Jamaica is
nearly five times that of the Windward Group or the Leeward
Group, yet the exports are only 1/. per head of the population,
while in each of those two groups they are over 3/. per head. A
very small fraction of the exports are anything but sugar. The
total public debt of the colony in 1884 amounted to 869,000/. Of
this it is true 58 per cent, has been expended on reproductive
works, 20 per cent, more has been expended on works of utility,
indirectly reproductive, such as roads, buildings and bridges, and
the remaining 22 per cent, is the legacy of former days, and of a
series of untoward circumstances. It is hoped that most of this
debt will be redeemed within the present century. The two diffi-
culties are, (a) method of raising taxation ; and (6) labour supply.

(a) At the present, Jamaica is not heavily taxed. The revenue

156 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

raised is at the rate of a little over IZ. per head of population, while
in British Guiana the rate is half as much again, and in Trinidad
the rate is three and a half times as great. Out of a population of
580,000 only 13,000 are white ; not one in forty. The majority of
the planting and mercantile classes are intelligent and reasonable
in their views of taxation ; but the bulk of the negroes are unreason-
able and ignorant to a degree, with the consequence that it is
specially difficult to obtain revenue by direct taxes. The negro is
unwilling to pay any visible or direct tax ; and hence the policy
has arisen of placing indirect taxes in the shape of import duties
on food — flour, meal and salt fish. These food duties in Jamaica
yield nearly 30 per cent, of the revenue, with the consequence that
one pound of bread costs here 3rf. to S^d, while in England the 4 lb.
loaf sells at &d, or 6^d. It has been alleged that these taxes do
not, however, immediately affect the negro, who prefers to live on
roots such as yams, plantains, and bananas, and does not consume
on the average more than 25 lbs. of imported breadstuffs per head
per annum, at a value of about 6s. for the whole year ; and out of
this total it seems only about Sd, goes into the treasury as import
duty. If this is so, then the food duties have failed of the very
purpose of their existence : the negro does not pay his share of the
indirect taxes which were originally instituted for his benefit. And
on the other hand, is it nothing that flour should pay 18 to 26 per
cent, duty on its first cost in America ? The negro is the most
stalwart of men, and for the heavy labour in the plantations re-
quires a more sustaining diet than he at present gets ; if the import
duties were taken off breadstuffs, would he not be enabled and
encouraged to provide himself with these, and would not a diet
sufficient to produce and maintain physical energy be put within the
reach of every one ? It is replied that food taxation has no effect
on consumption. It does not check the consumption; for salt fish,
which is eaten as acondiment by the negro with his vegetable diet,
is admitted free of duty into Trinidad, and in Jamaica the import
duty is very high, but yet the consumption per head is the same in
both islands. The removal of import duties does not increase the
consumption; for in Montserrat com has been admitted free of
duty for nine years, and yet no more per head is consumed there
than in Jamaica. All depends on the habits or the needs of the
particular population. The negro does not prefer wheat as a food.
The taxation of food stuffs in the West Indies then involves two
questions : in the first place, are they necessaries of life ^ and

1880. JAMAICA— LABOUR SUPPLY. 157

secondly, is there any other and better means of raising an equiva-
lent amount of necessary revenue ? Although commeal and flour
are nutritious, yet the negro obtains much nourishing vegetable
food in the shape of sweet potatoes, yams, bread-fruit, plantains,
and other tropical produce growing abundantly in the island. As
regards the second, it might be urged that an one-fifth of the
revenue is devoted to providing medicinal and educational ad-
vantages for the negro population, it is only right that they should
contribute their fair share towards obtaining the special benefits
Government provides for them. The negro's contribution to food
duties is small ; his objection to direct taxes great, and the total
abolition of food duties, which are easily collected and willingly
paid, and the substitution of others, might cause widespread and
serious discontent. Nevertheless it must be remembered that the
negro peasant proprietors in Grenada have made an offer to pay a
tax of OS. per acre on their cacao lands, and that a small uniform
land-tax (similar to that in Trinidad, p. 81, and in Barbados) of
Is. on every acre in Jamaica up to ] 00 acres, 6d. on every other
acre up to 500 acres, and l^d. on every acre over 600 acres, would
not only check squatting on abandoned plantations and its at-
tendant evils, but also raise considerable revenue from the larger,
as well as the smaller, landed proprietors. If Jamaica were made
a free port like Trinidad, its commerce and prosperity would pro-
bably at once increase ; and when the Panama Canal is completed
the adoption of free trade would be of still greater consequence.
This great undertaking will revolutionise the trade, and work great
changes in the prospects, of those West Indian islands whose
Governments are ready to meet the new conditions of things.

But even if Jamaica were made a free port, and the taxation was
equitably raised, there would still remain the second difficulty, that
of (b) labour supply. In Jamaica the number 6f the negro peasant
proprietors is increasing. There are at present little short of 50,000,
who between them occupy 108,000 acres (an average holding of
twenty acres apiece). Most of these are unwilling to work except
on their own ground ; where they grow provisions, fruits, and other
articles that may be raised in a small way for the large markets of
America near at hand. It is doubtful, however, whether the land
is not being permanently injured by the operations of these un-
skilled and penniless cultivators, who recklessly destroy timber and
burn up the country by the wasteful method of fires, and many
of them then abandon their plots after exhausting the soil. More-

158 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

over, the younger generation of the Jamaican negroes view manual
labour with absolute abhorrence ; a small amount of education they
fancy raises them above the need to labour, and their ambition
leads them to overstock the market with clerks, writers, small
lawyers and itinerant preachers. Now of course it is quite right
that able men should endeavour to rise and better themselves.
There is nothing wrong in the negro thus aiming to reach as high
a sphere as he can attain ; but the consequence is, that if he will
not work others must be introduced to do the labour he refuses.
And the introduction of such other labour will benefit the negro in
the long run, for he is neither better nor worse than the labourer
in other countries. In Barbados he works because he is taught
by the force of competition that if he does not he will starve ; and
the Barbadian negro in consequence is far more prosperous and
healthy than the Jamaican. Indolence, whether in the negro or
any other race, is rendered inveterate by the bounties of nature.
The yams, and bananas, and plantains, grow abundantly for his
eating, almost without culture, and more he does not want. Every
passion acts upon his untrained and happy animal nature with
strange intensity; his anger is sudden and furious, his mirth
clamorous, his vanity excessive, and his curiosity audacious. Emo-
tional in the highest degree and good-humoured, it would not
seem unreasonable to suppose that he is capable of being per-
manently raised in the scale of humanity. Our forefathers brought
this race here from Africa and we are responsible for their sur-
roundings; and when we consider that the negro population
of the West Indies had been slaves for a generation or two, and
absolute savages before they were made slaves, the wonder is
not that they should come short of a European standard of
civilisation, as no doubt they do, but that they should have done
as well as on the whole they have. The negro has immense
physical strength united to the intellect and disposition of a child.
He has a child's ignorance, carelessness, dislike of continued effort,
and even the thoughtless cruelty which often shocks us in children.
The very fact of his great physical strength stands in the way of
the negro's intellectual progress. He can do so much by the
exertion of mere brute force, and his wants are so few, that the
mind is seldom stimulated to exercise. Absolute freedom unac-
companied by any kind of restraint is not good for man, and in the
case of the negro, who, like all other races upon whom civilisation
has only recently dawned, is in many respects but a grown-up child.

1880. JAMAICA— LABOUR SUPPLY. 159

it ought to be no matter for wonder that it has failed to produce the
rapid amelioration which was anticipated by those who did not know
him. But if with freedom he can acquire habits of industry and
self-respect, as in time he surely will, tbere can be no doubt he will
play a more important and satisfactory part in the history of the
future than he has done in that of the past. When the West
Indian negro is not industrious, the cause is not merely the posses-
sion of freedom, but the combination of very few wants with
unlimited land on which to squat.

The small amount of labour given by the negro is a proof that
he needs little work to obtain the food he wants. The rate of
wages for labourers in Jamaica is Is. 6d. to Is, 9d, per day. If the
work is by piece there is no diflSculty in earning 28. 6d. to 3s.
Bread is 9d. per lb., but he need not buy it unless he pleases.
Pork and beef average 6d. per lb., and can at times be bought for
less. Meat grown in the island pays no duty that can afiect the
price. Skilled labour is paid remarkably well. The Jamaica
Handbook says that, on a rough average, labour costs from 50 to
100 per cent, more in Jamaica than in England. A negro labourer
can earn 10s. to 12s. a week, a sum nominally equal to the wages of
an agricultural labourer in England, but double in its purchasing
power, since the negro has very little expense for house rent (he
very often obtains his house accommodation free when working on ^
estates), and has not to provide himself with heavy clothing.

Now no one disputes the perfect right of the negro to employ
himself in whatever work he may choose ; but as Jamaica principally
depends upon the sugar industry, and as the island population does
not (as a mere matter of fact) afford sufficient available labour for
the sugar cultivation, recourse must be had to immigration from
other British possessions.

There is no mysterious law which binds the West Indian
proprietor to employ the African rather than the temperate and
the economical Asiatic. To imagine that the negroes in an island
which is not cultivated to one-fifth of its capabilities are to sit
still like dogs in the manger and neither do aught themselves to
develop its resources or permit other people to come in and do so,
is bad humanity and worse science. There is no compulsion,
moral or political, that we should prefer the African to the Asiatic.
The two most prosperous of the West Indian colonies are those in
which the Asiatic has been employed on a large scale, and with
energy — Trinidad and British Guiana. Trade with England,

160 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

stationary in the case of Jamaica, has steadily increased and nearly
doubled itself in the other. Trade with all the world, practically
stationary in the one case, has nearly quadrupled itself in the
other. The total output from the sugar estates, actually decreasing
in the one case, has increased nearly three-fold in the other. The
acreage cropped in canes shows a decrease in the one case, while in
the other it has more than doubled itself. The introduction of the
coolie not only benefits the land and the general prosperity of the
country, but it largely advantages the negro himself. For his
character and capacities depend much, as in other races, on his
circumstances and surroundings. Under a stimulus to work he
will exert himself; but there is at present no sufficient stimulus
here. The negro works admirably at the heavy labour re-
quired in making railway cuttings and embankments. In the
works connected with the Panama Canal, he is the most esteemed
and reliable among the many races employed on that undertak-
ing. In a recent report, of the chief engineer of that work
it is said that the 12,000 Jamaica negroes were jealous of the
powerful machinery that excavated the deep earth cuttings, and
volunteered to do the work for the same cost as the machinery
and as quickly. The engineer wishing to encourage such excellent
labourers consented to this unprecedented demand, and the negro
actually succeeded in distancing the machinery. It is well known
among yachtsmen and sailors frequenting the West Indies that the
West Indian negro is a bold, reliable, obedient, and enduring
seaman. All present and past experience of the West Indies
and the United States point to the negro as the finest tropical
labourer in the world ; and if he refuses to work for our planters in
some of our islands, it is because sufficient stimulus to exertion in
the shape of double or treble pay as at Panama — there he receives
4s. 2d. a day instead of Is. 3d. here — or competition in the labour
market as at Barbados, does not exist to counterbalance the tempta-
tions to idle self-indulgence. But what a paradise this island of
Jamaica should be. It is said that thirty days' labour in the year
on one acre of good soil will, in addition to providing a family
with necessary food for the yeai', yield a surplus, saleable in the
market, of from 10/. to 30Z. And yet in the midst of all this
fertility the Jamaican negro is deteriorating in physique. Medical
evidence is strong on the signs he gives of decreasing vitality ; a
variety of forms of anaemia are becoming more and more common.
Whether this is the result of unhealthy habits of life, and an

1880. JAMAICA— LABOUR SUPPLY. 161

exclusive vegetable and fish diet is not clear. Meanwhile there is the
fertile land, and no labour available for tilling it successfully nor
any signs of such being forthcoming unless by immigration. The
addition of 100,000 coolies to the island population would only give
the same proportion as now exists in Trinidad and British Guiana.
In Trinidad out of a population of 160,000, 50,000 are coolies.
In Jamaica out of a population of 580,000 there are only 14,000
coolies ; 1,000 might very well be imported every year for the next
twenty years. In the last ten years 3,700 coolies who came as
paupers carried back to India *with them 40,000Z. in money and the
same sum in jewellery ; these were their savings after having en-
riched their employers also by their labour. Similarly Chinese
coolies would increase the coflfee crop 30 per cent., at an increa.se
to the present expense of only 5 per cent. Wherever a dearth of
labour really exists it should be at once remedied by coolie immi-
gration ; which, as we have seen before, confers great benefits on
multitudes of our fellow subjects in India and elsewhere, by trans-
ferring them from a condition of poverty, if not of starvation, to one
of competence and even affluence. The process is precisely parallel
to that other of transplanting thousands of our own British race
from the overcrowded shores of England to other regions in the
temperate zone either of North America, or Australia. That the
thing can be done and ought to be done to the interest of all con-
cerned (negroes as well as white men) is shown by comparing once
more the state of Barbados with that of Jamaica. Barbados with
its superabundant population cultivates every inch of ground, and
is able to grow sugar upon rocks by throwing earth upon them ;
on the other hand Jamaica, with thousands of acres of fine land
teeming with fertility, and with a climate on its magnificent
mountains suitable for the residence of Europeans, is but partially
cultivated, and could give a fair living to ten times its present
population. In Barbados great industry is essential to enable the
labourers to live, and the production of the soil is kept at its
highest pitch. In Jamaica comparatively little labour supplies the
wants of the agricultural population, and the easy acquisition of '
land for his own cultivation renders the labourer independent to a
great extent of plantation employment. In such of the West
Indies as are underpopulated coolie and Chinese labour must be
introduced. That it will succeed and render millions happy is shown
in both hemispheres, in Singapore as well as in South America
With their aid Jamaica too will be able to cultivate her large tracts
VOL. I. M

162 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

of splendid land now lying waste. The principal produce of the
island is still sugar, but the growth of the cane has greatly
diminished of late years ; it is not one-fifth of what it was before
1834, though the population has doubled since then. The sugar
plantations are situated on the lower and warmer tracts ; the coffee
thrives best in the hills and their declivities. Cattle are plentiful,
and the climate is well adapted for stock raising ; many oxen are
employed in agriculture and for draught purposes. No other of
the West Indian islands is equal to Jamaica in fertility, and yet
it no longer pays the white man to grow sugar in Jamaica, or
indeed anywhere else in the West Indies where he is dependent
upon negroes who have other means of obtaining their livelihood.
But Jamaica is in worse plight than most of the other islands.
While her annual expenditure is about four times larger than that
of Barbados and from one-fourth to one-third larger than that of
British Guiana or Trinidad, her total exports are barely more than
equal to those of the first-named island, which has one quarter of
her population, and one-twentieth of her area, and are only half of
the exports of the other two colonies.

Sugar cultivation will pay here, if it will pay anywhere, but it
must be under resident owners, who will manage their own business
and manufacture the sugar with some regard to science and
economy. For besides an importation of fresh labourers an
importation of science is desirable : there is ample scope for con-
siderable improvement in the growing and manufacture of sugar.
The beet-sugar maker has been largely assisted by scientific skill,
and is thus enabled to obtain all the sugar contained in the beet
juice, which is about the satfie quantity of sugar as the cane
planter gets from a like quantity of the juice of the sugar-cane.
But the juice of the cane contains twice as much sugar as that of
the beet-root, consequently the cane-planter loses, by imperfect
manufacture, as much sugar as he sells. If this be so, there would
be hope even yet for the West Indian to compete with bounty-fed
beet-sugar. It is stated that the error of the cane-planter occurs
in his perpetuating lime as a clarifier and the boiling of syrups
which should be evaporated only : thus seventy gallons of molasses
are produced for every hogshead of good sugar procured. But if
the syrup were evaporated, instead of being boiled (as is necessary
if lime be used as a clarifier), then an increase of 50 per cent
of sugar more than the usual product would be obtained:
)ftnd thus 100 tons would become 150 tons without an increased

1880. FUTURE OF JAMAICA. 1G3

expense worth naming : and the 50 tons would be a clear
gain.

It would therefore appear that the three means by which
prosperity may perhaps be brought back to Jamaica are these : —

1. The clearing away import duties on food, and the substi-

tution of a uniform land-tax in their stead.

2. The introduction of Indian coolies and Chinese, races who,

whether they are or are not equal to the negro in working
power man for man, are certainly not more foreign to the
soil than he is, and have the advantage of working where
he does not.

3. The scientific development of their neglected estates by

resident owners, and the use of more eflfective and
economical methods of producing sugar ; as well as the
supplementing of decaying and unremunerative crops by
others, such as coffee, tobacco, cinchona, and cacao.

Prosperity begets prosperity, and by degrees and with wise
management there is no doubt that capital may be made to flow
back into Jamaica, and its natural resources may be developed,
whether they be agricultural or mineral. For probably before many
years have passed, the iron, copper, lead, zinc, and even coal, that
now remain unworked in its hills will be turned to good account, if
not by the Englishman or negro, at any rate by the Chinamen,
who, as soon as the Isthmus of Panama is pierced, will surely flow
through to this and the other West Indian islands in profuse
numbers.]

On leaving Spanish Town the road, which is good and hard, runs
for two or three miles on a perfect level, and is fenced on both
sides with the prickly pinguin hedge. The land did not seem
much cultivated ; here and there we observed a field dotted with
trees, under which cattle were grazing. But for the greater part of
this flat section of the road it was bordered by a wood composed
chiefly of acacia and logwood trees, in some places covered with
long grey beards of moss, in others with creepers, one like a great
convolvulus which ran to the tops of the trees and covered them
with festoons of purple lilac flowers. Wooden huts were scattered
amoogst the trees, and negro liquor-shops.

Six miles out we passed the new irrigation works where the
stream, at a cost to Government of 80,000/., has been dammed
preparatory to being led off as required by canals over the arid

M 2

1C4 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

plains, and thus came after a drive of a couple more miles, to the
Bog Walk, an English corruption of Bocca Aqua or Water's Mouth.
It reminded us in its general eflfect very much of a Welsh valley,
with the stream called the Cobre, or Snake, from its serpentine
course winding and twisting about over rocks, and down what seems
to have been a cleft in the limestone mountains. The sides are of
moderate height, about 400 feet, and covered with woods of tree-
ferns, palms, and palmettoes with their broad fan-like leaves, the
bamboos being most conspicuous and ornamental: these noble
reeds, often fifty feet high, are exceedingly graceful and are grouped
like Prince of Wales's feathers. At one place there is a cliflF of
fine perpendicular grey rock hanging out over the river, and round
the bottom of this the road is cut, but in most places it mounts
the ascent of the valley beside the descending torrent without
much difficulty. We picnicked about four miles up the pass, just
beneath the second iron bridge, where Captain Hartwell (the head
of the police force) had constructed a long hut of bamboo and
greenery, down on the stones in the broad bed of the stream
where it was dry. Afterwards some of us walked up to the head
of the pass, which emerges into open fields of guinea-grass, and
others occupied themselves in shying at empty bottles floating
down the stream, or in sketching, until the time came for driving
back. The cool shade and the sound of the water running over
the boulders was most refreshing and most homelike. We drove
back in Mr. Levy's carriage (who is custos of Spanish Town) and
stopped at his house and " Pen " (as all country properties are called
out here), where a number of cattle, fine-looking beasts, were
grazing in his grounds. Then back by train to Kingston. Every-
thing very well arranged, and people, white, black and brown, very
enthusiastic in their demonstrations. After dinner at King's
House, there was some music and singing.

March 20^A. — Started at 7 A.M., in the cool of the early morning
for Flams tead. We drove in carriages as far as "the gardens," a
large rest-house and stable 900 feet above the sea level, and there at
8 A.M. mounted on ponies and leaving the road which leads to New-
castle on the left, struck across the river bed and began to ascend
the hill. The path for most of the way is wide enough for two
horses to pass. It always runs by the side of a gorge dense with
intricate verdure of cotton-trees, palms, and broad-leaved bananas ;
creepers of countless varieties gracefully hang from bough to bough
and make of the whole one mass of delicate tracery. At the bottom

1880. JAMAICA— FLAMSTEAD. 165

below runs water leaping and lost in the close vegetation; for
Jamaica is a corruption of the old Indian name, Xaymaca, " the
land of springs/' and in each of these gorges bubbles and runs the
torrent. " He sendeth His springs into the valleys that run among
the hills." Here an'd there, both looking inland and also away to
sea, there are openings, and we had wide glimpses over a broader
extent of country than we have seen elsewhere since we left
England. Red and grey are the two colours which predominate
on the line of hills in the foreground, while the higher ones in the
centre of the island are a dark rich blue. Now and then the path
is steeper, and we canter on alone winding round precipices and
ever getting higher and higher. Flamstead is 4,000 feet above the
sea, and it took us two and a half hours' riding to get up there
from King's House. The air and the temperature at this height
is not tropical at all, and English flowers, fruits, and shrubs, the
common white clover, the violet, and the gorse and wild straw-
berry, grow here without the least difficulty. The temperature
falls about l** for every 300 feet of ascent. The mean temperature
at Kingston is about SO"", but with two or three hours walk or ride,
a change of 15° can be had any day by coming up from the flat
plain on which Kingston stands; and with ordinary care English-
men may be as healthy here as at home, cr healthier ; the plain
truth being that for nine months out of the twelve the climate in
the West Indies is simply perfect. There are many great houses on
estates that might be furbished up for winter resorts to yachtsmen
and their friends, who, whether they hail from the United States
or the United Kingdom, are beginning to recognise that a delight-
ful winter may be spent in the real warmth, magnificent scenery,
and interesting historical and local associations of the West Indies.
The Governor comes up here every year, from the Queen's birthday
to that of the Prince of Wales, which is the hottest season, and
as the wire is laid from Kingston there is no difficulty in carrying
on business. The Commodore's house is a pretty cottage within
200 yards distance from Flamstead ; the connecting path between
the two leads across a regular English garden. He has a heliograph
and blue-jacket signalman up here, by means of which he can flash
signals to, and receive them from, the dockyard any hour of the
day, as the sun is nearly always shining. George began working
this at once, and flashed to the dockyard " Many happy returns
of the day," to one of our messmates on board the Bacchante,
whose birthday it happened to be. The sensation of breathing

166 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

the keen light air up here is invigorating and delightful.
Along the whole of the south horizon stretches the blue Carib-
bean Sea, with lines and wrinkles on its surface of wind and
current. Looking west we see Port Royal away at the end of
the white spit of the Palisades and the ships lying there ; on
the other side of the hai'bour to the north, with the sheen of the
sun on its grey surface, lies Kingston. Beyond Port Royal is Fort
Augusta and the Twelve Apostles, and the line of low hills that
stretches between Kingston and Spanish Town. Turning to the
north, across the deep and broad network of wooded valleys (up one
of which we have come this morning), we see the white huts and
barracks for the troops at Newcastle, and the amphitheatre of hills
sweeping round above them eastwards.

After breakfast we walked with Mr. Musgrave and Dr. Lloyd to
Belle Vue, the house on the summit of the next hill, and called
on Dr. Steele and found him deep in a discussion with Mr. Tagget
(the civil engineer) on the drainage and water supply of Kingston
and Port Royal. Leaving them in the summer-house at the corner
of the grounds, we went a little way along the road at the back of
the house, from whence we got a wider view of the Blue Mountain
range with its three summits, the Dome, John Crow (after the
great heavy black vultures so called here), and the Grand summit.
This ridge is the backbone of the island, running from east to
west. The highest peak is 7,100 feet. Then back to Flamstead, and
all about the garden, where we all much enjoyed lying and rolling
about on the turf, until at 4 P.M. we started to descend, and got
back to King s House at 6.30 p.m. ; had a good bathe and then to
dinner, to which came Mr. Hockin, the new Attorney-General,
just arrived by to-day's mail from England. There was a cricket
match to-day, Army and Navy against the Kingston Club ; the
latter won easily. Some of the party who stayed the night at
Flamstead with the Commodore were uncommonly glad of two or
three blankets on their beds, so fresh was the air up there.

March 2l8L — The cocks have been crowing all night, and the
negroes have been hymn-singing just as persistently at a wake
which has been held in some hut close by. At 6.30 A.M. left King's
House, where Mr. Newton has so hospitably been entertaining us
and a large party from the ship for four days, said good-bye and
thanked him for all his kindness ; then drove down to Kingston, found
the Commodore's launch at the pier, and started in her at 7 A.M.
down the harbour, perfectly calm in the lull between the land and sea

1880.

JAMAICA— PORT ROYAL.

167

breezes, so that in the mirage at its mouth the clifis appeared
suspended above the water. Arrived on board at 8 A.M. Had
the usual services at 10.80 A.M. and 5 P.M. Coming back to the
ship it feels very hot and close after the airy rooms we have had
ashore.

JAMAICA TO BERMUDA.

Datk.

From Pkevioub Noon.

At Noon.

Tempebatuff.

Distance.

Lat.

LoDg.

gea.

Air.

Coui-Be.

n luu.

ail.

steam. 1

Noon.

6 P.M.

Neon.

6 p.m.

Mar.

• ••

Variable 1-2

...

N. 51 E.

N.E. 3-4

18-40

75-11

N. IE.

Variable 1-2

21-89

74-6

N. 15 E.

155

N.E. 4-5

24-8

73-80

N. 43 E.

159

N.E. 5-7

26-3

71-20

N. 42 E.

162

N.E. 4-6

28-3

6919

28S.

N. 89 E.

215

S. 4-6

30-48

66-42

29
Tota

...

••

153

S. 7-8

distance

1,000 mile

March 22nd. — Very warm indeed. It is often over 90*" in the
cabin, as the iron sides of the glacis outside, which are painted
black, so soon become heated with the sun, and retain the heat a
long time. After sunset it is almost impossible to keep the
hand for any length of time laid against the iron beams inside.
Wrote letters for the mail and then lunched at the Commodore's.
Brought ofif a box of the land shells of Jamaica, and a lot of fern

168 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

things and photographs, and at 5 P.M. slipped from the buoy and
proceeded under steam out of the harbour. In the evening light
we thought the coast of Jamaica, on account of the red-grey and
violet hues on its clear-cut mountains, looked very like the
" purple crowned " hills behind and around Athens.

March 2Srd, — Steaming up the Windward Passage, but quite out
of sight of either Hayti or Cuba, the sea as smooth as glass, not a
breath of wind and intensely hot. Dropped a target overboard
and steamed round it all the morning firing shot and shell.
Passed two Portuguese men-of-war with their pink sails, making
their way slowly along. Began reading Lefroy's Memorials of
Bermuda, and Godet's little book on the same island. In the
evening at 9.30 p.m. observed Cuba on the port beam.

March 2Uh, — Just before sunrise this morning when Venus was
quite low, and just shining above a long line of cloud that skirted the
horizon, being on watch, could have been certain for a moment that
it was a lighthouse on an island, as the line of clouds had just the
appearance of land. Steaming along quietly all the day seven
knots. In the afternoon lowered a cutter, and ran Whitehead
torpedoes. Just before sunset sighted Castle Island Lighthouse,
and in the evening passed Crooked Island. As we are now clear
from the lee of the large island of San Domingo, we once more
get the north-east trade, and there is already a cooler and fresher
feeling in the air. After evening quarters had a turn at gynmastics
and felt all the better for it.

March 2oth. — At 1.10 p.m. lost sight of Bird Island light,
bearing south. As we ai*e steaming north-east head to wind,
we are smothered in stokers; the best place on the ship now
is the forecastle. Passed out of the tropics during the forenoon,
and came upon a large quantity of gulf-weed. Good-bye to the
West Indies.

Good Friday, March 2&h, — Divine service in the morning,
" make and mend clothes " in the afternoon ; short prayers after
evening quarters. At noon to-day made good 158 miles.

faster Day, March 2Sth. — At 5.30 A.M, up top-gallant masts,
made plain sail, and at noon have made good 214 miles ; wind from
south-west, very cold. Extra singing at morning service ; most of
the hands who cared for them, having by this time their own
prayer-books and hymn-books. By evening we are drawing near
to Bermuda, but the island was not sighted. At 5.15 p.m. shortened
and furled sails ; dark, thick, blustering night, force of the wind 8.

1880.

JAMAICA TO BERMUDA.

169

Marck 29/A.— At 1.30 A.M. sighted the David Head light. A
windy, rainy and foggy morning; lost sight of Gibb's Hill light
at 2.30 A.M. Anchored oflF Lighthouse Point at 7.30 AM. in twelve
fathoms. A negro pilot came off, better than Caliban. " Be not
afeard ; the isle is fall of noises, Sounds and sweet airs that give
delight and hurt not" {Tempest, Act 3, Sc. ii.). After much
thunder and lightning the weather cleared. At 8.30 AM. weighed
and proceeded slowly under steam through the " Narrows," past
St. George's and up to Grassy Bay, where we made fast to buoy.
In some parts this passage in through the coral reefs, which fringe
the whole of these islands, is so narrow that there is scarcely room
for a laige vessel ; it is completely commanded by the heavy guns
at St. George's, and is carefully buoyed on either side ; if the buoys
were removed it would be next to impossible for an enemy's ship
to approach. In the afternoon the Bacchante received orders from
the Admiral to come into the Camber and make fast alongside at
a berth astern of the flagship, which accordingly we did in charge
of the harbour-master at 4.45 p.m. Found here the Northampton,
flag, Capt. J. Fisher ; Blanche, Capt. C. G. F, Knowles ; CoTvtest,
Lieut.-Commander F. A, Moysey, and the fixtures Terror, Scorpion,
Viper, and Vixen.

AT BERMUDA.

Datb.

WlHD.

Temperature.

Sea.

Aip.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.

6 P.M.

March

S.W. 5 0

W. 7-9

April

W. 6-8

N.W. 7-8

N.W. 6-3

4S.

Variable 1

S.E. 1-3

S.W. 8-4

S.W. 5-6

S.W. 6-8

N.E. 2-4

S.W. 4-8

US.

S.W. 6'8-2

S.W. 2-4

March SO^A. — It is very jolly being alongside a stone wall for a
change and able to walk on shore from the ship. We got a run before

. 170 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

breakfast and saw some of the mids from the flagship. Went with
Capt. Fisher over the Northampton; her great beam and fine roomy
gun-deck were particularly striking after the narrower and more
crowded JSaccJiante, In the afternoon walked all round Ireland,
saw the fives courts which are in the moat of the fort, and the
quoit ground, and then went on to the cemetery, which is very
prettily situated in a grassy dell beneath the shade of Bermudan
cedars, and so round by Somerset Ferry, home. The temperature
here is 63^ a most pleasing change from what we have lately
endured. A westerly gale with very heavy squalls of wind and
rain has been blowing all day and continued all night, as well as
the whole of Wednesday the 31st. H.M.S. Atalanta arrived on
January 29th, and sailed firom this port on the 31st, two months
ago, for England. The crew were then in good health. [No
tidings were ever received of her after that date. While we were
snug in harbour she went down this Easter week as likely as not,
stern foremost, in a sudden shift of wind in this very gale. Or
she may have capsized from the same reason that caused the loss
of the Captain and the Eurydice — want of stability at the larger
angles of heel. She had unusually heavy spars and masts nearly
the same as she would have carried had she had her ordinary sea-
going equipment on board as a cruising man-of-war. Her light
armament (she had only four guns on board instead of twenty-eight)
would also have conduced to a want of stability, as would her being
minus the weight of shot required for the greater number, most of
which would ordinarily have been stowed below. These reasons are
sufficient to account for her loss. There may of course have been
others. The ship had an apparent stiffness under her canvas at
moderate angles of heel combined with a deficiency of stability at
large angles, which was the main source of danger in a vessel
heavily sparred, and that rolled and lurched so heavily as the
Atalanta unquestionably did. Fierce gales prevailed in the
Atlantic at that time, and a fine iron steamer, the Bay of Biscay,
homeward bound from Rangoon, was not heard of after she was
spoken near the same spot where the Atalanta would probably have
been. A vast quantity of wreckage floating round the Azores attested
the severity of the weather in the Atlantic. Shipwreck seems in-
dissolubly connected with the history of "the still vexed Ber-
moothes." Sir Walter Raleigh in 1596 had spoken of the
Bermudas being "in a hellish sea, for thunder, lightning and
storms," In Hakluyt's voyages, 1600, there is a description of the

.1880. BERMUDA-CLARENCE COVE. 171

shipwreck of Henry May liere in 1593. Sir George Somers, in
1609 sailing to Virginia, ran ashore here, and it was from the
account published in the following year, "A Discovery of the
Barmudas, otherwise called the Isle of Divils," by one of the crew,
that Shakespeare probably obtained the scenery and local setting
for The Tempest, in which, after the shipwreck, " The first man
that leaped ashore cried, ' Hell is empty, and all the devils are
here * " (Act 1, Sc. i.). Waller, who once lived here, wrote a curious
and amusing poem minutely describing the islands and their pro-
ducts, as also did Thomas Moore.] BaccharUe finished coaling to-day.
We went across to Clarence Cove and called on the Admiral and
Lady McClintock, and then on the Governor, Sir Robert Laflfan.
Back to the Admiral's, where we had a good game of lawn-tennis,
and returned in the steam pinnace across Grassy Bay to the
dockyard.

Ainil 1st, — Still very squally, but got a walk round the dock-
yard island, visiting especially the site of the new Club for Seamen
and Marines ; it is below the naval hospital, but will have a fine
lookout over Harrington Sound. The place is both cool and
sheltered. It would be impossible to have found a better site;
one not too far from the dockyard for the convenience of men from
the ships, and yet far enough for them to feel free. The Governor
gave his dinner in honour of the Admiral's arrival on the station.
We both went to stay at Clarence Cove with Sir Leopold McClintock.
There was a cricket match to-day, Baccha7Ue against Blanche, Terror,
and Contest ; Bacchante, first innings, 44 ; second, 22 for six wickets ;
Blanche, Terror, Contest, first innings, 42; second, 23; Bacchante
winning by four wickets.

April 2nd. — Up early and down to the caves at Clarence Cove,
to bathe before breakfast with the flag lieutenant, Van Koughnet.
At 10.15 A.M., Sir Robert Laffan came on horseback, and we joined
him, and he

'' show'd us all the qualities o' the isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile."

— Tempest, Act 1, Sc. ii.

We first passed along the north road by the sea till we came to the
American Consul's (Mr. Allen), where we saw the angel fish (bright
blue), the cowfish (bright red), and other oddities in his aquarium.
Then to the Devil's Hole, a weird sort of natural tank used as a
fish-reservoir, where fish that have been netted are kept till
required. It is a cave (such as that in which Caliban was styed)

172 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

the entrance of which only is visible here, but it runs right
through to the sea on the south side of the island, for the
tide rises and falls in it with the sea outside, and its waters
have no connection with those of Harrington Sound, although they
are within a stone's throw of its beach. We were then to have
gone to the Sand Hills, but missed the way. The fragrance of
the cedar trees in the sun is very strong.

** The air breathes upon ub here most sweetly."

* * « « tt

** The ground indeed is tawny,
With an eye of green in 't," — Tempest, Act 2, Sc. i.

where widespread brackish marshes are overgrown with coarse
grass, rushes and mangrove jungle. There are five soils in
the island, a light red soil, a reddish clayey soil, sand, a dark
calcareous soil, and peat. We saw Spanish Point from the
road ; on the front of the rock is the old inscription *' 1543,"
cut by some old buccaneer. The first European eyes that rested
on these islands were those of Bermudez, a Spaniard, before
1515. They were not colonised till after 1609, from Queen
Elizabeth's Virginia, and from England. We passed the stone
walls of many substantial houses by the water's side now in ruins.
These were the homes of the old sea captains, in the days when
Bermuda cedar ships traded to Newfoundland, the W^est Indies
and elsewhere. One boat of three tons with five persons in her
succeeded in crossing the Atlantic from Bermuda to Ireland in
1616; but most of them were from 200 to 300 tons burden.
They used to carry the salt fish of Newfoundland to Italy and
Portugal, and take back the port-wine for which Newfoundland
became celebrated, or run down to Madeira and Ascension to meet
the homeward-bound Indian fleet, and take back cargoes of tea or
other Indian and Chinese products to be distributed along the
American seaboard. Some of the gardens round their now deserted
houses contain the flower seeds which these old fellows brought
home from all countries. It was steam that was the death-warrant
of their carrying trade. Then on through the town of Hamilton
in front of the Government buildings and lines of stores, each
with an open piazza in front two or three yards wide, supported
by slender pillars ; and so home to Clarence Cove. After lunch
went down into the long caves by the sea with the Admiral,
who told us of his early days under Lord Dundonald, and spoke
of his three predecessors in command of this station — Sir Cooper

1880. BERMUDA -GIBB'S HILL. 173

Key (who had just gone home), Admiral Fanshawe (who was
at the College when we passed as naval cadets), and Admiral
Wellesley (who succeeded Sir Hastings Yelverton as first Sea Lord
when we first entered the service). He showed us, too, the
"midshipman's garden" and grave, and the many flowers and
plants which are reared from the seeds which each admiral brings
back here from his cruise " round the islands." We then went along
the tunnelled passage through the sandstone, which runs down and
under the road and comes out into the kitchen garden beyond.
There was a fancy dress dance at the Governor's from 5 to 9.30 p.m.
to which we went. The mids of the Northampton came as blue-
jackets in whites ; one of the clerks was very effective as the '* Mad
Hatter" from Alice in Wonderland, and another was dressed in
ghastly fashion, so that his head with its rolling eyes and grizzly
beard appeared to be set on the wrong way ; two officers of the
artillery made a very good Irish peasant and girl, the former
singing some Irish songs, while some of the officers of the 99th
Regiment, which had just come up from the Cape, appeared in the
full dress of naked Zulu warriors with shields and assegais. We
slept that evening again at Clarence Cove. Cricket match to-day,
bluejackets of Bacchante v. those of the Northampton, Bacchante
(ship's company) first innings 83, second innings 58 ; Northampton
(ship's company) first innings 42, second innings 12 for five
wickets ; Bacchante thus beating the flagship on the first innings.
April Srd. — Bathed before breakfast at the caves, Clarence
Cove; and then started in a dogcart with Mr. Carpenter (the
Governor's aide-de-camp), and drove through Hamilton to Gibb's
Hill Lighthouse, up which we went to the top. The lighthouse is
130 feet high and stands on the highest point in the islands, 245
feet above the sea level. From outside the lantern you get the best
view over the whole of the group of islands (said to be 365 in
number). They stretch in a rough semicircle, from Ireland on
the left or western extremity, where the masts of the men-of-war
lying at anchor are visible, then on past Somerset Island, then
all up Harrington Sound past Hamilton, and so right away to
St. George's on the right or eastern extremity, twenty miles from
Ireland at the other. We are now standing therefore on the
southernmost point of the whole group ; looking away due north across
the Bay, it is all apparently open sea, but in reality one large mass
of coral-reef, over the greater portion of which there is but three
or four feet of water, though there are deeper channels here and

174 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

there amid the reefs. Looking down from where we stand we can
also perceive the formation of the whole group, and understand
how they are the point of the huge pinnacle which rises sheer
up from the bottom of the Atlantic; whether it be the point
of a volcano afterwards incrusted by coral insects, or formed by
other means. The Challenger took four soundings in the Atlantic
between Halifax and Madeira above 3,000 fathoms. The deepest
of all was off Bermuda, where the lead sank four miles and a half.
Down this enormous depth sinks the side of the Bermudas, in a
sheer precipice grander far than the Matterhom and probably the
hugest on the globe. We are therefore now standing on an insular
platform on the summit of a peak 15,000 feet high at least from
the bottom of the Atlantic. Such a peak could only be formed
by coral growth, and therefore the structure of Bermuda shows
a progressive subsidence of the bed of the Atlantic here. As
soon as the head of the original mountain was covered by the sea
the coral growth began ; and this platform has been kept at the
sea level by a growth at the summit continued at a rate equal to
that of the subsidence of the base. This platform of coral reef
forms an uneven top to the peak, of oval form, whose longest
diameter from east to west is twenty-five miles, and the breadth
twelve miles. The external lip of this oval ring — which measures
about fifty miles in circuit — ^whether composed of islands or of
sunken reefs — is seldom more than a mile in width, but the wide
expanse of 120 square miles of inclosed water which it encircles is
broken up and diversified by numberless smaller reefs and ledges of
coral, which render the internal navigation extremely intricate and
dangerous to all but experienced pilots. At present the southern
lip only of the great oval is formed of islands; the northern,
eastern, and western sides are almost continuous reefs of coral,
which inclose the expanse of water, the only practicable entrance
to which is through a narrow tortuous passage on the eastern side
at the distance of about half a mile from the shore. This channel
is about two miles in length and is very intricate, so that vessels
must move through it very slowly, and with great caution. It is
commanded throughout its whole length (as are also the approaches
to it from either side) by numerous batteries mounting heavy guns
behind casemated iron shields. In war time the channel would
also be defended by torpedoes or submarine mines. No hostile
cruiser could approach within five miles of the dockyard in
Ireland without having first made her way through the encircling

1880. BERMUDA. 175

reefs. There are between three and four hundred islands ; the
central one, on which Hamilton stands, is fifteen miles long, and
two of the others are three miles long, but most of them are so
small that they are scarcely more than patches of sand collected
on the pieces of coral-reef which protrude here and there above
the water. This, owing to its being so shallow, is of the brightest
blue, and is fringed all round its edge with a white sandy beach,
the "yellow sands" of Ariel's song. Here and there are a few
palms, but not many, for nearly every spot in the island available
for cultivation is planted with potatoes, onions, tomatoes, beet-
root, and other garden produce, which is shipped for the early
and winter markets of the United States; on which in return
these islands are entirely dependent for their food supply of
bread and meat, so that any interruption to their intercourse with
the neighbouring continent would cause great temporary distress.
We drove back to the Governor s, past several pretty houses standing
in their own grounds and gardens. Apparently the only tree that
flourishes in these islands is the Bermudan cedar, the wood of
which is hard and brittle ; it never imbibes moisture, and hence it
is good for boat-building, but not for furniture on account of its
being so difficult to carve. " The cloven pine " in which Ariel was
confined by his mother who had been left on this island by sailors
was probably one of these trees, when Prospero " made gape the
pine " and let him out ; and its " berries " were those that were put in
water for Caliban (Act 1, Sc. ii.). The oleander shrub, with its pink
blossoms, appears to be equally plentiful in the gardens and round
the edges of the water, but of course is useless except for wicker-
work. There is also a quantity of prickly pear growing luxuriantly,
but it is not turned to account by the cultivation of the cochineal
insect on it. This cultivation we saw at Teneriflfe, whence up-
wards of 60,000Z. worth of this valuable dye is annually exported
(p. 42). The only two native birds still here are the little ground
doves (who are being elbowed out by the sparrows that were
introduced by a former Governor), and the bright plumaged "blue
birds,'' a sort of great thrush; these also, we were told, will
probably in a few years find it difficult to gather food to support
themselves against the sparrows. Another Governor introduced
the sage plant, which now seeds itself in every garden in the
island, and from being a benefit has become a noxious nuisance.

We stopped in Hamilton and went inside the cathedral, which,
although at present incomplete, is a lofty and well-designed church.

176 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

and already contains some very good windows of stained glass from
England ; to-day it was prettily decorated with flowers for Easter.
Leaving the cathedral we called at the bishop's (he is bishop of
Newfoundland and Bermuda), and drove on up the old cedar avenue,
and past the church with a square tower just outside Qovermnent
House grounds. There are nine parishes in all in Bermuda, but
only five livings. Each incumbent officiates in two churches.
About 70 per cent, of the white and 65 per cent, of the coloured
population belong to the Church of England. The total population
of the islands is 5,300 white, and 8,500 coloured. The approach
to Government House at Mount Langton is through a steep
cleft cut in the rock, each side of which is now covered with
creepers and other flowers. We played lawn-tennis on the shady
lawn in front of the house, and afterwards walked round the garden
with Sir Robert Laffan, who being an old Engineer officer has taken
great pleasure in laying out the grounds to the best advantage.
On the slopes of the hillside he has made many terrace walks,
and has used the two caves under the hill for ferneries, and shady
retreats, in which many English plants are able to grow and flourish
even through the Bermudan summer.

As we watched the banana tree in flower — its crown of leaves
falling over the fat green stem in curves — the Governor pointed out
how the whorls of green or golden fingers (below which dangles the
purple spike) are not a fruit at all but really a large flower ; each
banana is the petal of a blossom, and when the blossom is first formed
this is very clearly manifest. One plant bears only one flower (or
bunch of bananas),and having put forth its strength thus it dies; each
plant only lives one year, but during this time has produced on its one
stem thirty to sixty pounds of bananas. The banana is indeed the
stafif of life : but the much-abused cocoa-nut cannot come near it as
a devil's agent. The cocoa-palm is confined to the tropics and sea-
levels; and asks some labour — though not much. The banana grows
as a weed and hangs down its branches of ripe tempting frnit into
your lap as you lie in its cool shade. The cocoa-nut has a hundred
uses, and urges man to work to make spirit from its juice, ropes,
clothes, matting, bags, from its fibre, oil from the pulp ; it creates
an export trade which appeals to almost all men in offering large
and quick returns for little work. But the banana will make
nothing ; you can eat it raw or fried, you can eat it every day of
your life without becoming tired of its taste, without suffering in
your health ; you can live on it exclusively. The plentiful possession

1880. BERMUDA— MOUNT LANGTON. 177

of this tree has been fatal to industry and exertion for multitudes
in the West Indies.

On the top of this hill Sir R. Laffan has constructed a wooden
erection, from the summit of which he can obtain a view not only
over the whole of the islands, but can also overtop the Admiral s
lookout, whence signals are made across to the flagship and dock-
yard on Ireland, from Clarence Cove which lies just beneath. The
woodwork is arranged skeleton-wise so as to stand against the high
winds which sometimes prevail here, when if it were a solid mass
it would be blown away. His Excellency then explained his theory
of the formation of Bermuda. He supposes that the pinnacle from
the bottom of the Atlantic is formed entirely of sand, and that its
foundation originated from the swirl of the gulf-stream and other
ocean currents, and so gradually rose higher and higher. The
greatest angle at which sand will rest when thus piled up is one of
45'', and he stated that this was the angle at which the pinnacle
rises from the ocean bed. Be this as it may, the formation at any
rate of the portion that is above the sea level can daily be seen taking
place. The sand which thus accumulates is composed of very
small shells. The action of saline particles from the sea causes an
incrustation of lime of two or three inches in thickness to form on
the surface of one layer of this sand before a new one is deposited
by a second storm, and this appears to be the cause why nearly all
the rock lies in thin laminsB. This fact also explains why layers of
dark coloured vegetable mould are found below white rock. The
transition of the coral and shell sand cast on the shore by the
waves and winds may thus be traced through various stages, even
till it becomes crystalline limestone. This is quite soft when first
uncovered, but exposure to the atmosphere so acts upon the lime
that the whole mass hardens into a friable stone. This white
granular limestone formed by the metamorphosis of the coral is
everywhere met with in various degrees of hardness : it will well
withstand rain and damp when coated over with cement. After
lunch with the Governor we returned to Clarence Cove in time
for Lady McClintock's first " at home," or garden party, for lawn-
tennis, dancing, &c. There were two bands playing, one indoors
and one out. To this there came not only many naval officers,
but also those of the Boyal Artillery, and of the 16th and 99th
Regiments. Several Americans also came, who happened to be
staying at the hotel in Hamilton. This is a very good house,
although it is only open for the four winter months, from

VOL. I. N

178 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

December to March, and is closed during the other eight ; when
it is open there are generally about 200 Americans staying in
it at one time. The Bermudas are in fact the relics of the
old North American colonial possessions of Great Britain, just as
the Channel Islands are of our French possessions. The distance
from the nearest point in North Carolina is only 580 miles, and from
New York 677. Left at 6 p.m. in the steam pinnace, and returned
across the bay with the rest of the officers to the Bacchante in the
Camber.

April Uh. — ^Roman Catholics to early mass. The officers and
men of the Northampton all marched to church with their band
playing, to the dockyard chapel : we had our service on the main
deck. Went to lunch afterwards with Captain Moresby, senior
officer in charge of the Dockyard Establishment. He entertained
us with yarns of his own proceedings in New Guinea, and showed
us his book on the same island, as well as many curiosities he had
there collected, and also others tliat had belonged to his father.
Admiral Sir Fairfax Moresby. He reminds us very much of his
brother, who was paymaster in the Britannia the whole time we
were there. In the afternoon, Captain Fisher kindly took us in his
galley right up the bay towards Gibbs' Lighthouse ; we landed at
Somerset Ferry, in an old graveyard, where were many curious old
tombs of the early settlers and some of the convicts (who were em-
ployed on Boaz Island on Government work, but are now all with-
drawn), and walked back in time for five o'clock service on board
the Bacchante,

April 5th, — At 11.30 A.M. went on board the old dockyard ten-
der, Viper, with a party of officers from the Northampton and
the Bacchante, Captain Knowles of the Blanche, Captain Fisher
and the Staff-commander of the flagship. Captain Moresby and
Staff-commander Clapp. We first steamed across and picked
up the Admiral and party at Clarence Cove, and the Governor and
his people, and then went right out across the bay to North Rock,
the course to which amid the coral reefs had been carefully buoyed
out by Captain Moresby yesterday. We could scarcely have had a
better day for seeing the reefs, as there is just sufficient and not too
much sunlight. The patches of the reefs show out as dark spots
under the water, with light green strips round and between
them where there is a sandy bottom. We proceed through one or
two very narrow passages, going very slowly, and in the last the old
Viper crumbled a few inches of the brittle top off the edge of the

1880. BERMUDA— NORTH ROCK. 179

reefe. We approached within a cable's length of the North Rock,
and then got into the steam pinnaces, which we had been towing
astern, and from them landed on it. It consists of three or four
jagged brown sandstone teeth, that stand up a dozen or fifteen
feet above the water and rise from a widespread and submerged
stone plateau in the midst of the northern reefs. Thes^ brown
rocks are geologically older than any portion of Bermuda now
visible, and are the remains of an older island that once existed,
on the northern lip of the oval top of the Bermudan ocean peak,
but which is now all gone. The reef round them on which we
landed is covered by the sea at high water. We had brought
sea glasses (funnels of wood about a yard long, with a piece of
plate-glass at the lower end), which you dip into the water, and
looking down through these over the side of the pinnace, we
had a good gaze at the bottom. There we saw lilac coloured wavy
fans, and large lumps of white brain coral, with pearl oysters
amongst them, and sea anemones of all sorts, and other branches
of coral of every shape and size. Amongst and on them all kinds
of seaweed of every hue — black, green, red, bronze, pink, yellow
— ^were growing. Owing to the clearness of the water the smallest
motion of the many coloured fish roaming through the delicate
fronds of coral and in and out amongst the weed could be dis-
tinctly observed, we noticed three kinds, the first was the *' yellow
tail," which is pale azure on the back and pearly white below with
broad bands of yellow along each side ; the next was " the spotted
snapper," which also carries these yellow bands, only his body is
white, his fins rosy pink, and each flank has a great oval patch
of black ; and the third kind had yellow fins, and scarlet spots all
over the body ; in fact, the reefs support quite a fairy world of
their own. This is the spot of which Ariel sings to Ferdinand after
his shipwreck here : —

"Full fathom five thy father lies ;
Of his bones are coral made ;
Those are pearls that were his eyes ;

Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-chango
Into something rich and strange.
Sea -nymphs hourly ring his knell.
Hark ! now I hear them —
Ding-dong, bell." Tempest^ Act 1, Sc. ii.

Some of the party had some good sport fishing, and caught
rockfish; one large fellow, of over fifty pounds weight, was
hauled in over the stem of the Vij[>er whilst she was lying

N 2

180 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

to. We got on board the Viper again, and started at 4.30 PJL to
return* As we steamed back into the bow of the bay there was a
most striking view of the whole semicircular group of the islands,
from St. George's at the east end, to the dockyard on Ireland at
the other. You see, too, how they are blown sand hills, knolls with
wide flat stretches in between. The wind, what little there is
to-day, is from the west, and produces almost too much ruffle
on the water for seeing the reef to full advantage : an absolutely
calm still day is what is wanted ; but it is difficult to arrange to
have one of these that will also suit with the spring tides. Very
often there are not two such in the whole year, so we may con-
sider ourselves on the whole very lucky. We landed the admiral
and his party at the Ducking Stone, and got back to the dockyard
at 6.30 P.M., after one of the most enjoyable days we have ever
spent. The Viper draws eleven feet ; nothing of the same draught
has been out where we went to-day for a very long time, if ever
before. There was a cricket match this afternoon : the officers of
the Bacchante, v. the Ireland and Boaz Island eleven ; these last
got 106, the Bacchante 26, and in the second innings 36, with seven
wickets to falL

April 6tt,— In the afternoon we and a party of mids went
ashore in the dockyard for instruction. We were taken over the
floating dock (towed out from England in the summer of 1869),
and the various parts of the machinery connected with it were
explained to us. There was a cricket match between our
ship's company and that of the Blanche, which our men won by
sixty-two runs : this match was played away on Somerset Island.
On the other cricket ground an officers' match was played at
the same time — Navy v. Army. Army first innings, 108. Navy
first innings, 29 ; second innings, 50.

April 7th. — The wind having gone round to the south-west
for the last three days, has had the effect of sending the ther-
mometer up several degrees, and makes the air feel heavy and
muggy ; just as Caliban describes the same warm oppressiveness
(which is mo^e striking in the summer months) — "a south-west
blow on ye And blister ye all o'er I" Act. 1, Sc. ii. Alternate
north-westerly and south-westerly winds prevail in Bermuda
during nine months of the year; the wind remaining at no
other point for any length of time. When it is north-west there
is fine hard weather with clear sky and a low temperature.
This ends in a very fine bright day with calms ; afterwards the

188X BERMUDA-ST. GEORGEU 181

wind invariably goes round to south-west when the thermometer
rises and heavy rains ensue. At 1 p.m. the Admiral and
Governor, with their family parties, came over from Clarence Cove
and lunched on board the Bacchante. Afterwards two outrigger
torpedoes were fired from the steam pinnace, inside the Camber.
The concussion produced was more than was expected. Admiral
left the ship at 3.30 p.m. Some of the officers went to an afternoon
party given by the 99th Regiment at Prospect, but not many, as
the weather was very rough and boisterous. We two walked out to
Captain Moresby's, and had a capital game of bowls in the alley
which he has erected on a little island near his house, and across
to which he has thrown a bridge from his garden.

April 8th. — H.M.S. Plover arrived from Jamaica and Nassau
(in the Bahamas). After the usual morning school, at 1 p.m. a
party of officers from the different ships went on board the Viper
and steamed across the bay to Ferry Point, after having picked up
the Admiral and Governor at Clarence Cove. At Ferry Point we
left the Viper, and getting into the steam pinnaces, which had been
towed astern, we went up the inner bay to Joyce's Point, where
we landed on the rocks and clambered ashore. We descended first
into the island cave, where, through the smoke caused by the blue-
lights, we were able to discern a large sheet of water in the centre
of the cave, and many stalactites much broken. It is a long cave,
with two entrances, like that of which Stephano says in the
Tempest (Act 2, Sc. ii.), '* my cellar is in a rock by the seaside, whore
my wine is hid." Thence to the next cave, to approach which
ladders were needed, and the stalactites in which are better than
those in the one we had just left: they are thinner and more
delicately formed, and resemble coils of rope or the intertwining
roots of trees growing downwards. His Excellency explained how,
according to his theory, a similar formation of stalactites is going
on through the sand beneath ; and " so we see how strong is the
foundation on which the island rests rooted." There is a third and
similar series of caves at Walsingbam, a little further on, but these
we did not visit ; but getting into the steam pinnaces again from the
spot on which Prince Alfred landed, we proceeded up St. George's
Harbour, through the swing bridge and causeway, to St. George's.
The view looking thence into Castle Harbour shows some small
fir-covered islands, on the summit of one of which, in the distance,
are the ruins of a castle. We first steam past the town of St. George's
to Fort Cunningham, where Colonel Stokes, in command of the

182 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

artillery, took us up the hill and over the large iron casemated fort
with the 18-ton guns that command the entrance to the Narrows.
Standing on the summit of the fort we saw a charge of 250 pounds
of guncotton exploded under the " Boilers," a reef at the entrance
of St. George's Harbour, which was thus, with a fine cataract of
water, then and there removed by Colonel Gk>rdon, in command of
the Royal Engineers. St. George's harbour is probably the " deep
nook " (Act 1 , Sc. ii.) where Ariel describes the king's ship to be safely
in harbour, " tight and yare and bravely rigg'd as when She first put
out to sea." Presenting as it does a wide area of land-locked water,
with a good holding ground, and being easy of access from the
ocean with which it communicates direct instead of opening as does
the harbour of Hamilton into an inclosed inland sea, St. George's
harbour is frequently crowded during the winter months by large
merchant vessels seeking shelter during bad weather, or requiring
repairs after storms, or being in want of fresh provisions or water.
We came down the hill from Fort Cunningham, got into the
boats again, and rowed back to St. George's, where we disembarked,
and walked up to the barracks of the 19 th (Princess of Wales's
Own) Regiment. Here Lieutenant-Colonel Vigors showed us in the
messroom the silver statuette of the Princess of Wales presenting
new colours to the regiment at SheflSield. These to-day we saw
and handled ; the old colours are at Sandringham, though a few
fragments of them are still carefully preserved in a case by the
regiment. Then we walked through the town to St. Peter's church,
where the rector met and showed us the curious old communion
plate given by William III. to the church, on which the lion of the
House of Orange is borne on a shield of pretence in the centre of
the English arms ; and some plate still older than this, with the
arms of Bermuda engraved on the bottom ; and another fine set
of old silver, consisting of two or three large basons, a paten, a
chalice, a cup and strainer ; and besides these some more silver
christening bowls of a more modem date. " In that very place
which we now call St. George's toune this noble knight Sir George
Somers died, whereof the place taketh the name, but his men, as
men amazed seeing the death of him who was even as the life of
them all, embalmed his body and set sail for England. The cedar
ship of thirty tons with his dead body arrived at last at Whit-
church in Doi-setshire, where by his friends he was honourably
buried with many voUies of shot and the rites of a souldier." That
was in 1611 ; he was then eighty yeara of age. His heart was

1880. BERMUDA. 183

buried at St. George's, which was the old capital and seat of
government till 1815. It was here too that Thomas Moore
the poet, in 1804, resided when he held an appointment in the
Admiralty Prize Court. The Admiral stopped to dine with
the regiment ; most of the party returned in the Viper, and
arrived in the dockyard at Ireland by 7.30 p.m. In the
evening we went to a performance of the Baccha^Ue's Christy
Minstrels, in the theatre erected for such performances ashore.
The place was filled with many officers, both from our own and
other ships, and the proceeds were intended for the benefit of
J. Cowley, who had been left in hospital at Barbados. Cricket-
match this afternoon between the Bacchante and an eleven of
the Northampton, JBlanche, and Contest. Bacchante, first innings,
eleven. The three ships, first innings, forty-eight; second innings,
forty-two.

April Qth. — At school all the forenoon. At 1 p.m. left ship in
steam pinnace for Clarence Cove, where Mr. Carpenter met us with
horses from Mount Langton, whither we rode, and after picking up
the Governor, went on to Mount Prospect. Into the messroom
of the 99th (Duke of Edinburgh's Own) Kegiment, and saw their
Zulu trophies. Then mounting again rode on to the meet of the
paper-chase. Of this we saw the finish at Mount Langton, where
there was some very good jumping arranged; after which there
was a garden party at the Governor's ; then walked to Clarence
Hill, and, after a quiet supper with the Admiral, slept there.
H.M.S. Tamar arrived.

April 10th. — Bathed before breakfast down in the caves and
played lawn-tennis afterwards, at which the Admiral's jolly little
boy joined us. After lunch Lady McClintock had her usual
Saturday " at home " and garden party. Some of the Northampton
mids came and we bathed with them down in the caves again, so
did one or two of the officers of the 99th Regiment. Then said
good-bye to Sir Leopold and Lady McClintock, and thanked them
for all their very great kindness to us during our stay at Bermuda.
Betum cricket match Bacchante v. Northampton, Bacchante, first
innings ninety-nine ; second innings nine and ten wickets to fall.
Northampton, first innings sixty-nine; second innings forty-nine.
H.M.S. Tamar left for England.

April llth, — ^At 10 A.M., Bishop Llewellyn Jones of Newfound-
land and Bermuda came on board and preached at our morning
service, after which there was a collection for the Seamen and

184 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

Marines Orphan Schools at Portsmouth, for which he got
£8 11«. 3d. After service we both went with him on board the
Northampton, over which Captain Fisher took us and showed us all
his new dodges, then lunched with him and returned to the ship.
In the afternoon walked to the bathing-place through the dockyard.
Mail came in and brought the news of Mr. Gladstone having beaten
the captain's brother, Lord Dalkeith, in the election for Midlothian.
The mails come by way of New York and Halifax, the last of
which places is 730 miles distant. There is no direct mail to
England ; neither is there any telegraphic communication with this
important military and naval otctpost. The government of the
Bermudas is administered by the Oovernor and a local parliament
of two houses. The upper consists of ten members, nominated by
the crown, the lower of thirty-six members, elected four from each
of the nine parishes. There are only 854 electors, the qualification
for a vote being possession of freehold of 60L value. One twelfth of
the revenue of the island is devoted to the payment of the members,
which is at the rate of about 28, a head of the population. Most
of the Acts are only of " temporary " duration, and, therefore, have
to be renewed after due debate. The pay of the members of the
upper and lower house is 8s. a day when on duty. This con-
stitution dates from before the time of our own Long Parliament,
1620.

April I2th. — Cast oflf and proceeded out of Camber at 8.30 A.M.
and at 9.45 A.M. made fast to buoy in Grassy Bay. At school all
the forenoon ; after the dinner hour went away in the steam
pinnace, towing a cutter full of blue-jackets and marines, and so
landed at the hospital and marched up to the site of their new Club ;
it was windy but the sun was shining and the rain held off. The
Governor and the Admiral with their several parties came, and the
latter made a very good speech, saying how each of his immediate
predecessors had entertained a hope of establishing this Club for
the use of the Seamen and Marines of the fleet. He then gave an
account of how matters had hitherto gone, what progress had been
made, and what good hope there was now of its success, and ended
up by saying " may God bless this club to every seaman and ship
using it." We both then laid the stone and the Bishop of New-
foundland gave the benediction. When it was all over we took
a final walk by ourselves through the well-kept garden cemetery,
and wandering along its tree-shaded paths had a farewell look at
the many interesting monuments it contains : all of these are more

1880. BERMUDA. 185

or less bright with flower-beds round them, rose and geranium
trees hang in clusters over several. Many have been sent out from
England, and erected by the officers and men of various ships in
memory of their comrades whom they may have lost during their
commissions on this station. We picked some of the air-plants
which were attaching themselves in plenty to the trees there;
so vivacious are they that a leaf placed any where will grow,
and does not require water or any further care. A leaf suspended
from the beam in our cabin throve and grew, and put forth fresh
leaves and tendrils from the edges of the old ones. We brought
several sprigs home, they continued green and fresh and flourishing
long after we arrived in England. Called in at Captain Moresby's,
thanked him for all he had done for us, then off in the pinnace
from the spot in the Camber where tho Bacchante had previously
been moored. When we arrived on board the officers made a
collection for the Club and collected in all £42 7s. Od. The Queen
and the Prince and Princess of Wales afterwards sent out from
England their portraits with autographs, "in memory of April
12th, 1880," for the club-room.

April ISth, — At 11 A.M. the German corvette Medusa arrived
and anchored in Grassy Bay. Slipped from the buoy at 11.45 A.M,
and steamed out through the Narrows. The flagstaffs both at
Clarence Cove and at Mount Langton signalled, " good-bye, pleasant
passage," and so we bade good-bye to Bermuda ; bright, cheery
memories of which wiU ever remain with us. We have been here
a fortnight, a longer time than we have spent in any one port
since we left England. Standing on the poop we lost sight of
the lighthouse at 5.10 p.m. ; as we began pitching to the Atlantic
swell. The next land we hope to sight is that of England,
now 3,000 miles away.

April 14ith, — No wind at all, long swell setting in and we are
rolling a bit ; sighted one sail going westward ; steaming all day
5*8 knots and by noon have made 130 miles. Distance from Lizard
Light 2,734 miles.

April 15th, — Not a breath of wind. This morning altered
course from east by north to north by east, to look for an Italian
steamer from Palermo, that is supposed to be drifting about disabled
according to the last mail received in Bermuda.

To-day is Thursday, which on board a man-of-war is generally a
half-hoUday for all hands. Dinner is as usual at noon (eight bells),
after which, when the arms have been cleaned and the decks cleared

186

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.
BERMUDA TO PORTSMOUTH.

1880.

Datx.

From Previous Noon.

At Nooh.

Tkmpicraturs.

Distance.

Bea.

Air.

Course.

Wind.

Lat.

Long.

Sofl.

steam.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon.

6 p.m.

April

...

N.W. 8-8

...

N. 72 E.

133

Variable 1

331

62-11

N. 62 E.

...

136

N. 1

34-6

59-48

N. 47 E.

...

118

Variable 1-2

85-22

58-7

N. 69-80

E.
N. 69 E.

...

162

N.W. 8

8618

55 0

18S.

121

S.W. 4-5

37'11

52-2

N. 70 E.

193

S.W. 7

4810

N. 72 E.

102

Squalls 10
S.W. 51

38-47

45-58

N. 60 E.

129

39-58

43-36

N. 56 E.

S.E. 4
S.E. 5-8

...

N. 58 E.

126

S.E. 7-4

42-0

39-18

N. 64 E.

162

...

S. 6-3

43-11

86 0

25S.

N. 68 E.

149

S.W. 4-8

:2-47

N. 69 E.

107

S.W.8,N.W.
3,8,1-2

44-53

29-53

N. 69 E.

245

S.W. 5-7

46-27

23-52

N. 63 E.

164

S. 6-7
S.E. 3-4

47-42

5018

N. 70 E.

121

S.E. 2-8

48-31

17-0

N. 77 E.

...

194

E.S. 3-4

49-14

12-9

May

N. 82 E.

...

194

N.E. 4

2S.

...

220

E. 1-2 .

49-40

7-30

...

N. 1

50-31

2-0

1170

1849

Total distance... 3019 mi

les.

1880. "HANDS MAKE AND MEND CLOTHES." 187

up, and when three bells (1.30 p.m.) has been struck on the bell on
the maindeck by the sentry, the boatswains pipe " Hands make
and mend clothes I " Part of the instruction of boys and young
seamen is tailoring, and almost every man can therefore make his
own clothes. But naturally there are some who have a greater
gift that way than others, and these are able to lend a helping
hand to their shipmates in cutting out or embroidering, or in
fitting bright fancy linings to their caps, or sleeves of jackets. Any
little distinctive mark which will not interfere with a man's
regulation uniform, such as these individual decorations, a blue-
jacket is very fond of. On this afternoon then, the men get out
their clothes' bags and overhaul them. But besides his black
sack-like bag of clothes, (each of which is numbered, and stowed
away when not being used in racks along the flats,) the seaman has
also his " ditty box," something like a small writing desk only of
plain white deal. He carries the key on his knife lanyard, and
the box itself is kept stowed between the beams over his mess.
It is the only place a sailor has under lock and key ; there he
keeps his needles and thread, his buttons, his money and his
letters, the photograph of his mother and sister, or sweetheart ;
aU his little home relics and any small gifts he may be bringing
home from foreign parts. If, therefore, you go forward between
the hours of 2 and 4 P.M. on a Thursday you will find all the men
more or less thus engaged. On the upper deck some will be sitting
or lying on the hatchways, doing a bit of sewing at their clothes ;
others will be reading well-thumbed copies of favourite books from
the ship's library, or popular tales lent them by a messmate ; others
will be standing about the foc'sle chatting or smoking. Down below
on the mess deck others again are grouped around the mess tables
occupied at their sewing, or writing, or overhauling the treasures
of their ditty boxes ; others stretched at full length on the decks or
forms will be asleep. Over the cables away at one end of this
deck, the two tables, which the first lieutenant has been good
enough to arrange for the men as a sort of reading room, are
unslung from overhead, and rigged up, and on them the school-
master, who acts as general librarian, has laid out tlie various
newspapers, periodicals, or magazines, that have arrived by the last
mail, as gifts from kind friends at home, or such as the officers
after having finished with in the ward- or gun-room may have sent
forward for the men's use.

This would be a good afternoon also for a visitor to come aft to the

188 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

gun-room. The Bacchante's gun-room is a cabin eight feet broad,
fourteen long, and seven high, on the starboard side of the ship. A
table in the middle takes up most of the space : it is rather a close fit
when we sit down a dozen or fourteen round it for meals. On three
sides of the gun-room are the lockers for seats, they are of mahogany
with leathern cushions. Above overhead, of the same wood, is a
deep shelf, which is crammed full of books and nautical instruments,
some in aud some out of boxes, dirks of all kinds, some bright, and
some the worse for wear, telescopes, backgammon and chess boards,
writing desks, photograph albums, and an omnium gatherum of
midshipmen's belongings throwu together, and evidently pulled
out and shoved in pretty frequently. The bulkheads of the
gun-room are painted white. There are two ports in the ship's side
that face you on entering, a large and a small : the latter is two feet
square, the former three feet by four, and is constructed so that
the upper half can be opened, and the lower left closed ; and this is
the more prudent course to adopt when not in harbour, unless you
wish to have a sea lopping in. At the after end is a large looking-
glass, occupying the whole width, which brightens up and gives
an appearance of greater size to the place. On the other two
sides hang four pictures, one of them is of the Prince and another is
of the Princess of Wales. If you lift the curtain that hangs in
front of either of the doors that open on to the half-deck, and come
in, you will probably find several sleeping forms stretched full length
on the locker cushions, for sea air makes you drowsy on a warm
afternoon, more especially when you have kept the middle watch
the night before. Other mids will be either making up their logs
and watch bills, or perhaps tracing charts, or finishing up a water-
colour drawing, or reading.

At the left-hand end is the sliding window which separates the
gun-room from the steward's pantry. He is generally at hand,
and when hailed " inside there," hands out tea or cocoa, biscuits,
sherry and bitters, brandies and sodas, or whatever you may be
pleased to take or call for. Now come forward on the foc'sle
again, which is the coolest place as there is not a breath of
wind stirring, and see the whales spouting in the distance on
both sides of the ship ; they might almost be taken for sail on
the horizon ; they are all going south. At 8 P.M. resumed our
proper course.

April \GtK — Exercised at general quarters, firing shot and shell
at a target ; for Friday is always the day specially devoted to great

1880.

FRIDAY GENERAL QUARTERS.

189

gun exercise. As soon as the daily prayers (at 9 A.M.) are over the
bugle sounds " exercise action." The mess tables are all cleared
away between the guns on the main deck, for they, as well as the
forms, on which the men sit at them, are so constructed that
their metal legs will fold up, so that they may be stowed away at
once overhead between the beams. Then the magazines and shell
room are opened, dummy cartridges are passed up, and all the
motions are gone through, as if the time were come for going into
action. The fire hoses lie on the deck coiled up, ready to bo
screwed on to the pumps if necessary, to cope with what is the
deadliest foe on board a ship. The guns are loaded and run out,
and trained in such directions as may be ordered. The men are
armed with their rifles, cutlasses, and pistols, and companies are
exercised, not only in the defence of their own ship, but also in
preparations for boarding an enemy. Quickness as well as

GENERAL QUARTERS.

accuracy of detail in drill is thus perfected. The men work with
a will, and one gun is drilled for time against another, and tossed
about like a plaything under the eye of the midshipman who has
charge of each, or the lieutenant whose station is at that particular
portion of the deck. Sometimes, as English bluejackets are apt to
get excited, and through desire to be quick are careless, or if there
is any talking, (for of course no word is allowed all this time to be
spoken by any one, except the necessary commands), and as it is im-
portant that each man should know and understand the smallest detail
of his duties, so that no question should take him aback, and no
change to another number at the gun should find him unprepared —
in the midst of all this activity, the bugle sounds the *' Still " — three
notes — which instantly causes every man and boy to remain just as
he may be, perfectly immovable : and then the captain s voice, or that

190 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

of the commander, from the bridge can be heard by each man, giving
his orders distinctly, upbraiding or directing as the case may bo,
until the bugle sounds again " Carry on," and all fall to with in-
creased exertion to do their duty. As the guns are fired the
smoke roUs and curls all along the main deck, as the breeze from
above or through the ports blows it inboard, but only for a few
moments, and the smell of the gunpowder floats away to sea.
Down below in the sick bay, the doctor waits in case any casualty
be brought to him to require attention : and occasionally a man is
told off, though hale and hearty, to be carried down in a cot, in order
to practise the men in the way of handling the sick or wounded.
When there is actual firing at a target, dinner is usually half an
hour later. On ordinary Fridays, quarters are over by 11.30 or
seven bells.

In the afternoon, as a light westerly wind sprang up, we
made sail. After evening quarters, gymnastics, bright and fresh.
At 10 P.M. went to " night-quarters," which is merely a repeti-
tion of the ordinary General Quarters' drill, except that when the
bugle unexpectedly sounds at night, every man of the watch
below is asleep in his hammock, and has, in addition to what was
described in the morning, at once to turn out, lash it up, bring it
on deck, and stow it away in the hammock nettings. At night
the men's hammocks are slung from the beams all along the main
deck over the mess tables and guns. The former have now to
be cleared away, and the latter cast loose, with the clatter of the
chains which hold them firm in their several places, and by the
light of the battle lanterns, instead of by that of day. Night
quarters must take place at least once a quarter, but of course
no notice is given beforehand : in order that the greater test may
be given to the men's preparedness for any emergency. To-night,
after firing two electric broadsides with blank cartridges, and
making a fine flare up of light and a grand crash of sound in the
dark stillness of mid-ocean, we turned in again.

Jpril Vlih, — From 9.30 to 12.30 preparing for action aloft,
sending down top-gallant masts, unbending sails, &c. After the
dinner hour made plain sail.

April l%th, — ^Very nice breeze from the south-west, so at 5.30
AJi. set starboard stunsails, and at 8 A.M. stopped steaming. The
usual Sunday services. After dinner up screw ; the breeze increasing
we make over ten knots. Moon and stars out. The midshipmen
are asleep in their hammocks, which are slung in the steerage, so

1880. "BERMUDA TO PORTSMOUTH. 191

close alongside each other that they are almost touching ; in the
same way their large chests containing their clothes, are closely
packed together on the deck of the steerage. At midnight the
boatswain's mate pipes " call the watch, watch to muster." The
middle watch having been roused out from their hammocks some
minutes previously, fall in on the quarter-deck. The midshipman
of the watch, who has also just been roused from sleep, stands
with his watch bill, and the corporal with his lantern, at the
capstan. He reads out their names, to which they answer one by
one, passing in front of him at the same time : when the last man
of the watch has answered to his name, the midshipman of the watch
reports " all present " to the lieutenant on the bridge, who then
orders reliefs to fall in, and the men of the watch now on deck go
to their several stations.

April 19th. — A rainy and squally morning. At 4.30 A.M., whilst
reefiog, a heavy squall from the southward struck the ship, carrying
away the fore top-gallant mast short above the cap, and the cross-
jack yard in the slings ; split the jib, the foretopmast staysail, and
fore and mizen top-gallant sails. After this the wind fell light and
down came the rain. At 6 p.m. swayed up cross-jack yard, the
carpenters having repaired it.

April 20^A. — Dead calm all night, noise of wash under counter
as we roll lazily on the swell. At 9 A.M. down screw, and at 10 AM.
shortened and furled sails, pointed the yards to the wind and pro-
ceeded under steam. To-day we got into water of a dirty bottle-
green, said to be caused by the ice melted from the Newfoundland
banks ; though its tempemture was only 65** and that of the air 61°
there was a damp fishy smell with it. The wind is shifting all
round the compass, and in the afternoon we are under sail for a
time, but the wind drawing ahead round to the south-east we
have to furl sails and steam. The Gulf Stream has carried us
thirty-five miles eastward during the last twenty-four hours and at
noon we are 1,865 miles fi'om the Lizard. When the Challenger
sounded in the Gulf Stream between Bermuda and Halifax, the
current was too strong in the middle to allow the sounding line to
reach the bottom, but the thermometer gave the temperature at
various depths, and showed that the passage from the warm stream
to the colder water which surrounded it was singularly abrupt, the
warm current flowing like a river between two banks of cold.

April 21st, — This morning we are out into the blue water again.
At 8 A.M. exchanged colours with an English clipper with eighteen

192 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

sails set on her and standing westward. There is a fresh feeling in
the air and we can see the mist over the edge of the Oulf Stream
that we have left astern. At 2.30 p.m. stopped engines, and after
evening quarters up screw, as what little wind there is enables us to
go three knots under sail. Next day wind squally from the south
south-east, sailing along close-hauled averaging four knots ; pouring
with rain all day. On Friday the wind drew round to the south,
and we made an average of six knots.

April 2oth, — ^At daylight one sail in sight. Stiff breeze from the
south-west. At 9.15 A.M. weather fine, topsail yard-arm carried
away, the stunsail being set at the time. No Sunday morning
service as the men were on deck repairing damages. Wet and
miserable ; but the wind is in a favourable quarter, and we are
going along eight knots; after evening quarters have evening
service all right ; and as it was the last Sunday in the month, we
had our Ba/xharUe Hymn for Absent Friends, as well as one of the
regular Hymns for Those at Sea. This we used to do the last
Sunday in every month regularly as long as the ship was in com-
mission, and the men all sang the words with heart and soul, for
their friends at home knew our practice, and we often thought they
were joining too, though separated from us by thousands of miles,

BACCHANTE HYMN FOR ABSENT FRIENDS.

Holy Father, in Thy mercy
Hear our anxious prayer,
Keep our loved ones, now far absent,
'Neath Thy care.

Jesus, Saviour, let thy presence
Be their light and guide,
Keep, oh keep them, in their weakness
At Thy side.

When in sorrow, when in danger.
When in loneliness,
In Thy love look down and comfort
Their distress.

May the joy of Thy salvation
Be their strength and stay,
May they love and may tney praise Thee
Day by day.

Holy Spirit, let Thy teaching
Sanctify their life.

Send Tny grace, that they may conquer
In the strife.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

God the One in Three,

Bless them, guide them, save them, keep them

Near to Thee. Amen.

Tune — Stephanos, Hymns A and M.

1880. NEARING ENGLAND. 193

April 26^A. — At 8.30 a.m. shortened and furled sails. At 9 A.M.
lit fires under all boilers for twelve-hours full speed trial, and seven
minutes after noon commenced the same. This was kept up till
seven minutes after midnight. With seventy-five revolutions, we
made on an average twelve knots; total distance run in the
twelve hours 149*5 miles; the maximum speed attained at any
one time was thirteen knots.

April 27th. — The wind being fresh and favourable, made plain
sail in the middle watch, and at 9 A.M. stopped steaming and up
screw.

The next day, as the wind headed us, got the screw down again,
and commenced steaming at 7 P.M., thirty-five revolutions for seven
knots. At 9.10 p.m. a barque on the port beam burnt blue lights ;
so we steered within hailing distance, and found the barque to be
the jRayal Alexandra of Liverpool, out from Calcutta bound for
London. She required no assistance, but wished to be reported at
Lloyd's, her main and mizen topmasts having been carried away in
the gale eight days previously.

April 29th, — Daylight, five sail in sight, at noon six ; increased
speed of engines to forty-five revolutions, which produced eight
knots. In the afternoon exchanged numbers with two English
barques, the Argosy of New Brunswick and the Monsoon of Dundee,
running westward. To each of these we make a signal, " Who is
the Premier ? " being anxious for news as to change of Ministry
in consequence of the late elections in England, but neither of
them make any response.

April SOth. — General quarters, pistol men at pistol practice. At
noon 195 miles run, and now we are only 278 from the Lizard. A
fine English spring day — the gulls come out to meet the Bacchante
and are all round us on the water. Two stonechats settle on the ship
quite wearied out. They perch themselves on a sunny spot on the
starboard glacis and we try to feed them ; they fly into the cabin
through the port, and we settle them for the night with water and
crumbs under an inverted paper basket ; in the morning they are
dead, nothing in their crops — too tired to taste the food we gave
them. At 6.5 p.m. exchanged colours with an English barque
running to the westward, but cannot make out her number by
signal ; we alter course and close her, holding up a black board on
the poop with, " Who is the Premier ? " chalked upon it. We are
now within hailing distance of the barque, and her skipper think-
ing we are inquiring her name shouts out Fan^hon, which our

VOL. I. O

194 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

captain and those round him on the poop hear as ** Gladstone."
So they next hail to the old gentleman, " What is his majority ? " and
the old man replied, " Non entiendo " (meaning, I don't understand),
which those on our poop understand as being " One hundred " We
were steaming close up alongside him at this time, and his dog was
barking at us, and his hands on the forecastle were putting their
heads up to know what was the matter, apparently wondering
what in the world we were after, as we steamed round and round
him. At 9 P.M. sounded with Sir William Thomson's sounding
machine on the tail of the great Sole Bank, sixty-seven fathoms,
fine sand.

May Ist — Beautiful sunny day, blue sea, cold, but invigorating
feel in the air, wind from the north-east, thermometer 53^
Saturday is the great cleaning day on board ship; sounds of
holy-stones and scrubbing-brushes begin at four in the morning.
Officers and men walk about in the cold grey morning without
shoes and stockings, and with their trousers turned up above their
knees, while every now and then a wash-deck bucket, either
full of water or empty, spins along down the slippery deck, as it
passes on from one hand to another. At 8 A.M. the signal is given
for " Fire Quarters" by the sentry striking quick, sharp strokes on
the bell on the half-deck, and the lieutenant of the watch sings out,
*'Fire under the foc'sle," or, "Fire in the starboard gangway" as the
case may be, and each man is at his station as if the fire were real
and not make-believe, and the hose pump and flood the spot
proclaimed till the flames are supposed to be extinguished. All
this splashing and soaking helps forward the general washing and
cleansing. But the work is not hurried, for there is no daily
inspection on a Saturday morning, and all the forenoon is devoted
to thoroughly cleaning every part of the ship. At seven bells when
the men have breakfasted, the same careful cleansing work begins
below; the lower deck and flats and store-rooms are all being
rubbed down, and the smell of soap is in the air everywhere, and
everywhere resounds the swish-rish of the bristles of the brushes
caused by their lively friction this way and that way mid the
damp and soapsuds upon the wood-work of bulkhead, combing,
deck, tables, &c. ; the ladders are turned wrong side up, that the traffic
may not dim the whiteness of their fresh scrubbed steps. At the
top and bottom of every hatchway are swabs and mats that you
may wipe your feet. Windsails are passed down to dry the decks,
and deck cloths are spread where there is most traffic. All the

1880. COMING UP CHANNEL. 195

mess traps, though polished every day, get an extra polish to-day ;
the tin mess kettles which are stowed at the end of each mess
table all down along the main deck must shine like silver ; the
hoops of the bread barges like burnished gold. The mess tables
are scrubbed as white as a table-cloth, and every stain of grease is
removed. Where needful the whitewash overhead is touched up,
and each mess vies with its neighbour in the strife after perfect
cleanliness and neatness. In the afternoon the brass- work receives
special attention; the guns are polished till they shine like
mirrors, and the brass corners on the bitts and the hand-rails to
the hatchways are all made bright and glittering. To-day is a
special Saturday, for to-morrow we hope to be at Spithead, and so
all hands are eager and keen to brighten and smarten up the
Bacchante, which we have learned to trust and love so well. At
2 FM, sighted the Bishop Lighthouse off Scilly. We alter course
and pass alongside the islands and make our number — we heard
afterwards that the Prince of Wales received a telegram from here,
announcing our safe arrival to him in the middle of the Royal
Academy dinner. On first sighting them, the impression was
strong that they were another group of West Indian Islands that
we had come upon, and we could scarcely believe they were really
England. At 2.30 p.m. sighted St. Agnes, at 4.50 p.m. the Wolf
Rock, at 5 pjff., towards dusk, the Land's End. When the men
muster at evening quarters, to each is served out a clean snow-
white hammock ; every soul on board feels joyous at nearing
dear old England, after many months which seem almost to us, so
many fresh things have we seen in the time, like as many years.
At 8 o'clock the first night-watch was set, and we came on deck and
saw the two dazzling electric lights on the Lizard, shining out like
two giant's eyes into the night. Hailed by a pilot boat, and heard
through the darkness that the Atalanta had gone down.

May 2nd. — ^At 2.20 A.M. sighted the Start Light on the port bow,
which we pass at 4.30 A.M., but there is a dim haze over the sea, so
cannot discern any of the Devonshire coast. We are going up
Channel over eight knots. At 8.30 A.M. sight Portland Bill ; at
10 A.M. after the usual routine work is over, all hands are mustered
at divisions for the ceremony of the captain's Sunday inspection,
when, accompanied by the commander and first lieutenant and all
heads of departments, he makes the round of the ship, going all
along the main deck, which is cleared of all but the sentry, and
into the store-rooms and engine-room, and every part of the ship.

O 2

196 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880

He passes last round the upper deck between the two lines of
blue-jackets drawn up bareheaded and in their Sunday uniform.
Inspection over, the sentry tolls the bell, and all find their way to
their places on the main deck for divine service. The chants and
the hymns seem to be sung with even more spirit than usual, and
as it is the first Sunday in the month there is a celebration of
Holy Communion. In the Bacchainte this always takes place on the
main deck at a small oak table covered with a red cloth, from beside
which also, instead of from the more formal pulpit or reading desk,
the prayers and lessons of the Sunday service are always read ;
those who wish retire on deck, and the rest remain where they
happen to be on their forms ; a canvas screen shuts off more
than half the main deck. Occasionally there are early cele-
brations of the Holy Communion in the captain's large fore-
cabin, at 8 A.M., which have been attended by about as many
as the mid-day celebrations. After church service the men go
to their dinners, but to-day soon come up again on deck, for being
within sight of home predisposes every one for a cheery chat
over their quiet pipe, as they discuss the events of the cruise and
the greetings of the morrow. We go close in by St. Aldhelm's
Head, and now we can distinguish very plainly Worth, Tillywhim,
and further on beyond, Swanage and the Old Harry chalk pinnacles.
We passed through the Needles at 1.30 p.m., then up the Solent
past Cowes, and at 3.30 P.M. saluted the commander-in-chiefs
flag with seventeen guns, and at 4 P.M. anchored at Spithead in
seven fathoms. Found here H.M.S. Warrior, Everything looks
very natural in the bright spring afternoon, though, coming from
the tropics, it feels very cool with the thermometer touching 50°.
Usual service at 5 p.m. with short address. Three only of the
ship's company that left England with us have died in the eight
months. Sent off telegrams announcing our arrival, and heard
from the Prince of Wales that he would be with us to-morrow
by noon.

May 3rrf. — At 6 A.M. Warrior proceeded up harbour. At noon
H.M.S. Fire Qtceen left the harbour flying the flag of H.R.H. the
Prince of Wales, which the Bacchante saluted with twenty-one
guns. At 12,15 p.m. she came alongside, and the Prince and
Princess of Wales and our three sisters came on board. While
they were going round the ship and looking at the animals and
ship's pets, the Fire Queen returned and brought off Admiral
Ryder and Prince Edward of Saxe -Weimar. These all lunched

1880. HOME AGAIN. 197

with the captain, and at 4 P.M. left the Baccharvte who manned
yards and saluted. And so amid these sounds of welcome we
landed once more on English soil, restored in health and safety to
our friends and home ; but all the time while coming up harbour
amid these reverberating echoes of the guns and forts, we could
not help thinking, as we looked up from the deck of the Fire Queen
at the lines of blue-jackets standing out aloft upon the yards of the
Duke of Wellington and of the St. Vincent, of those 300 men and
boys we had last seen in the bright West Indian Islands all in the
full prime and vigour of English life, but who now sleep beneath
the cold Atlantic wave, and to whom, and their sorrowing relatives
here ashore, never more will a share of all this we to-day enjoy
be given. ** Requiem setemam dona eis, Domine ; et lux perpetua
luceat eis."

*' Lord all-pitying, Jean blest,
Grant them Thine eternal rest."

198

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1880.

BETWEEN WHILES.

On the 4th of May, at 3.30 P.M., the Bacchante went into Ports-
mouth harbour from Spithead ; on the 7th gave seven days' leave
to starboard watch, and on the 15th the same to the port watch ;
on the 11th the ship went into No. 10 dock, and from that time
till the 11th of June was in the hands of the dockyard, refitting. &c.
On the 3rd of June she came out of No. 10 dock, and was lashed
to the north railway jetty ; on the 11th went out to Spithead and
anchored at 1.15 P.M., and took in powder and shell. On the 12th,

TO HOLYHEAD AND PLYMOUTH.

Date.

Passaob.

From Previous Noon.

TElfPERATURB.

Distance,
steam.

Wind.

Air.

Noon.

60
56
52
57
67
62

59
60

6 p.m. 1

June
12
13S.
14
15
16
17

18
19

20S.

3.30 P.M. from Spithead
2.10 P.M. "Holyhead

6.30 P.M. from Holyhead

6.15 A.M. Plymouth Sound

10.40 P.M. from Plymouth

10 A.M. Spithead

190

184

147
131

107

Variable 1-2

S.W. 4-5

N. 3-4

N.X.E. 4-6-5

N.E.4-5-7

E.N.E. 7.

N.E. 1-3

S.E. 1-8

S.E. 2-3

S.E. 8 -5 -2

o 1

58 .

60 ■

passing Portland made ship's number to Channel Fleet ; on the 16th
H.M.S. Hercules (Captain S. P. Townsend) and H.M,S. Belleisle
(Captain T. Barnardiston) arrived also at Holyhead. On the 17th
the Prince of Wales opened the London and North Western
Railway Docks at Holyhead, and the ships present manned yards
and fired royal salutes. The Bacchante left Holyhead the same
evening; called at Plymouth on the 19th to discharge super-
numeraries; saluted Admiral Elliot's flag, and found there H.M.S.
Achilles (Captain A. C. F. Heneage) and Valiant (Captain
W. C. Chapman). On the 21st having discharged powder and shell
at Spithead, at 10 A.M. came up into Portsmouth harbour and along-
side the north jetty, and from June 22nd to July 15th was again
in the hands of the dockyard, refitting. On the 16th at 2 P.M. she
went out to Spithead and anchored at 3 P.M., and on I7th took in
powder and shell.

1880. WITH CHANNEL AND RESERVE SQUADRONS. 199

CRUISE WITH THE COMBINED CHANNEL AND RESERVE
SQUADRONS.

July 19th, — We left Marlborough House at 9 A.M., and arriving
at Portsmouth harbour about noon, went off to the Bacchante,
which was lying at Spithead, in the cutter, under the command
of Mr. Gunner Frail. The tide and wind were against us, and so
a dockyard steam launch that happened to be going off with some
supernumeraries to the ship, having overtaken us half-way out,
took the cutter in tow, and we got on board just in time to run up
on the poop to salute the Queen as Her Majesty steamed past in
the Alberta, crossing to Osborne. It was nearly 4 P.M. when the
Bacchante weighed anchor; the weather threatened rain, but it
cleared and the sun shone out brightly through the clouds — a good
omen. We passed Cowes and went out through the Needles,
sighting Swanage, Durlstone Point, and St. Aldhelm's Head before
9 P.M. We proceeded - westwards all Monday night at seven
and a-half knots.

July 20th. — Past the Start at 5 A.M. in a fog which lasted all the
early morning. About 11 A.M. it cleared away, the sea was perfectly
calm. Past the Land s End by noon, and at 1 P.M. were close off
the Longships : these rocks resemble long-boats with reefed sails.
A lot of sea-birds on the water. In the afternoon as the wind
was favourable we made plain sail, and so proceeded eight, nine,
and ultimately ten knots as the wind freshened. At half-past ten
went to night quarters.

July 21s^. — At 7 a.m. sighted the coast of Ireland, Cape Clear, and
the Fastnet Lighthouse, which stands on the top of an isolated rock
that resembles a boat's lug from a distance, with the coast of county
Cork rising very mountainous behind. Saluted Admiral Hood's
flag, and came to anchor in Bantiy Bay at 3 p.m., after steaming
past all the ships of the combined Channel and Reserve Squadrons,
which we found here under Rear-Admiral Hood, C.B., in the
Minotaur (Captain Rawson) ; the Agincourt bearing the flag of
Read- Admiral Somerset (Captain Bulwer, C.B.), and the Hercules
bearing the flag of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh. They are lying
moored in two lines.- Our position is at the extreme end of the
weather line, next to the Minotaur, The Duke of Edinburgh was

200

CRUISE OF H.M,S. BACCHANTE,

1880.

PORTSMOUTH TO BANTRY BAY AND VIGO.

From Previous Noon.

At Noon.

DATS.

July
20

21
22
23

24
25S.

27
28
29
80
81

Course.

S. 8E.

S. 2
S. 9

S. 2
S. 1

S. 60 E.

Distauce.

Sail. Steam

Totals ...

134

208
18
59

95
91

125

121

119

22 |1237

Wind.

Lat

60-28

48-63

I ^^•
W. byN. 4, 49-53

W.S.W. 2 I

S.E.3-4,E.S.6, 50-26

Calm

S. 4-7,

W.S-W. 2-3

W. bv S. 3-4

S.W. 4,

S.E. 3-7

S.W. by S. 7,

W.S.W. 5-6

W.S.W. 7-4

S.W. 4-5

S.W. 2-3

W. 1

N.E. 2-3

Long.

W.
5 0

9-52

9"55

9-50

46-2 . 10-12

43-56
I 42-27

42-23
I 4211
I 4214

10-6
10-5
10-5
9-45
8-45

TEMPBRATVni.

Sea.

Noon.

6 KM.

Air.

Noon. 6 p.i

61
66
62

66
66

65
69
67
72
75

64
66
65

66
66

70
68
69
70
70

1880. BANTRY BAY. 201

out for the day in the Lively (Lieutenant-Commander Le Strange)
when we arrived, but returned shortly afterwards and then came on
board the Bacchante and asked us to dinner with him. This is
a well-sheltered anchorage lying between Bere Island and the north
shore of Bantry Bay. It may be entered at either end, and at any
state of the tide, by ironclads of deep draught. Within, the water
lies clear and deep beneath the shadow of craggy grey limestone
hills, which vary in height from 300 to 3,000 feet, and there is
ample room at Berehaven for even a larger fleet than that which
is now under Admiral Hood's orders. It was a splendid evening,
the light lingered long in the west after the sun had gone down,
and was reflected all over the smooth waters of Bantry Bay in
which the hill-tops and the clouds were mirrored surprisingly
clear. At 11.10 exercised at night quarters with the fleet ; second
night in succession we have had this.

July 22nd, — Midshipmen's half-yearly examination proceeding;
busy also making up logs and watch-bills. Very jolly meeting old
Britannia shipmates, of whom there are many here on board the
other ships. Left Berehaven, Bantry Bay, at 3 P.M., and proceeded
out of harbour in single column in line ahead, Bacchante being last
ship in the wake of Minotaur, When outside, the twelve ironclads
were formed into three divisions, each led by a flagship, with the
Bacchante on the starboard beam of the Minotaur, The eight ships
of the Keserve Squadron — Warrior (Captain R. C. Douglas), Lord
Warden (Captain Lindesay Brine), Hector (Captain R. Carter),
Penelope (Captain H. F. Nicholson), Valiant (Captain H. B. Wooll-
combe). Audacious, Defence (Captain A. T. Thrupp), and Hercules —
are manned by the coast-guardsmen, who are thus taken to sea
for drill and exercise for six weeks every summer. Every coast-
guardsman goes once in two years. For fighting purposes the
ships and guns are all obsolete : a couple of modem French iron-
clads with their breech-loading and small-shell machine-guns
(capable of penetrating twenty inches of armour), would make
matchwood of the lot with the greatest ease, however brave the
men on board might be, for none of them have more than five
inches of armour, and they represent the stage at which naval
construction had arrived a quarter of a century ago. They yet serve
a good purpose in the time of peace, not only by sparing the costly
new ships, but by supplying a very healthy and practical form of
floating gymnasium, for the crews. Men can be drilled on board of
them, not only to be gunners, but to be seamen. For purposes of

202 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

war, however, they axe only dangerous as tending to lull the shore-
going Englishman into a false belief that he has a navy adequate
to his defence. Capital for electioneering purposes is apt also to be
made out of their existence. They make an imposing show in the
ports of Ireland or Scotland, and on water as well as on paper ;
but the Channel and Reserve Squadrons' apparent strength is show
and nothing else. These huge gymnasia are thus a dangerous
means for misleading the country ; they are really a makeshift,
and so far from being a sign of our strength at sea, are a proof
of how much remains to be done to put the navy in a proper
condition. It is a fine sight, nevertheless, to see the combined
squadrons moving slowly in line over the water, though the stately
procession does not in reality mean all that it appears to. Just
before leaving Berehaven we heard that our old commander, Lord
Bamsay, had succeeded his father as Earl of Dalhousie. It was
another lovely evening; as we left the anchorage there were
several peat-fires burning on the hill-side with the smoke slowly
curling up.

July 24ith, — Proceeding steadily four knots. Perpetual signalling
all the morning, fine practice for our signal staflF, who are new to
squadron sailing. In the afternoon the twelve ironclads were at
steam tactics ; from two lines they formed into four, and went
through various evolutions, crossing and intercepting eaxih other's
path scientifically, and in diflferent ways, according to signal, turning
and manoeuvring, separating and closing in. The Ba/xhante was
ordered to look out on a given bearing four miles distant, whilst
the evolutions were going on. Took up our station again at
7 P.M. The same thing happened on each of the next few days.

July 26^A. — There were no evolutions to-day, as a man was
buried belonging to the Valiant After evening quarters we got
the bar up and had our usual gymnastic exercise.

July 27th. — ^We are having lovely weather with a gentle breeze
from the southward, and we all feel glad to be once more away at
sea. There are many porpoises about which afford objects for
launching the "good and kind's" harpoon at from the glacis
(happily without effect) as we lie off during the afternoon evolu-
tions. When these manoeuvres are over we have our share of the
ftm in the way of sail drill with the other ships, which is a good
thing for our men, considering the long time the BaccharUe has
been in the dockyard. The four Channel ships, Minotaur, Agin-
court, Achilles, and Northumberland, usually beat us in time and in

1880. BANTRY BAY TO VIGO. 203

smartness, as they have had so much more drill together than we
have, though we hold our own with the "gobbles." Whenever
two or more ships are in company together, and the same evolution
has to be performed at the same time by them, no matter what the
evolution may be, there is a race which shall have finished first,
which is often decided by a very few seconds only. We are abreast
of Finisterre this evening ; it is a splendid moonlight night. The
thirteen large ships of the combined squadrons, with the Sawh,
Lively, and Salamis (as tenders), are proceeding along together in
silence over the dark waters ; only the lights of each ship to tell
that the two lines are true to their stations and keeping exactly
the same distance from each other as in the broad daylight hours.
We pass now and again trading steamers on their way up Channel,
and their red and green lights^-according as they pass us on the
port or starboard — coming up out of the darkness and going into
the darkness, are the messengers that tell of the never-resting
network of Britain's trade and influence.

July 29th, — To-day as there is a fresh breeze from the south-
west, by permission of the admiral, we lie off under sail all day
whilst the fleet are at steam tactics. We had a fine view of the
Spanish coast in the evening, both of the highlands and their
villages, as well as of the rocky islands at the entrance of Vigo
Bay. Exercising signals with the electric light.

July SOth, — At 7 a.m. admiral altered course sixteen points to
starboard, that is right-about-face, and stood off" from the land.
Prepared for action aloft, after which there was a funeral on board
• the Northumherland, This is the third in the squadron since we
have left Bantry Bay, but as there are over 8,000 men in the
thirteen ships of the squadron, this would be no more than the
usual average of the death-rate. At noon altered course to stand
in towards the land. There is a beautiful breeze from the north,
and after the usual evolutions in the evening, on sighting land
again, altered course sixteen points to starboard and stood off for
the night.

July Slst. — At 1.30 A.M. Admiral altered course sixteen points to
port, and shaped course for Vigo Bay, which we entered about the
dinner hour. Fine mountainous coast outside ; the Bayona Islands
at the entrance are rocky and jagged, with a lighthouse on one
fork. They protect the bay entirely from the AUantic swell, and
as the wind is generally from the north down the coast of Spain,
the harbour is practically land-locked. The anchorage, off the town

204

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1880.

of Vigo, is about ten miles from the islands at the entrance of the
bay. We anchored at 2 p.m. in a good position off the town. The
Bacchante came in last, and steamed up between the two lines
of ships to her berth right at the end of the weather line, next to
the Minotaur, and so pretty close to the landing-steps. The square
houses of the town, towered and tiled, and the old church with its
double steeple and tang-tang bell seem close upon us, and above
all rises the hill with the Spanish fort on top.

'::^.^^^^^^

AT VIGO.

Date.

Wind.

Tkmpebaiure.

Sea.

Air.

Noon.

6P1I.

Noon.

6 p.m.

AVLg.

IS.

Calm

S.W. andN.E. 1

N. 3 '4 and variable

AugiLst let, — Lunched with Admiral Hood on board the
Minotaur, Afterwards went over the ship with the flag-lieutenant
and some of our gunroom friends, with whom we spent the greater
part of the afternoon, feeding a tame cockatoo, looking at photos
and a lot of Caldas ware from Lisbon, and other curios. Later on

1880. PICNIC UP VIGO BAY. 206

went on board the Heracles. It was a rainy and miserable
afternoon. Spanish frigate, Villa de Bilboa, arrived and saluted
Admiral Hood's flag.

Augvst 2nd. — At 10.15 A.M. the Duke of Edinburgh called
alongside the Bacchante in the Northuniberland's steam launch, to
take some of the oflScers for a picnic up to the head of Vigo Bay.
On starting the weather looked very unpromising, for clouds were
hanging low on the hills all round the bay ; but they all cleared ofiF,
and the view six miles further up, where the bay narrows in, was
very pretty. The hills are rugged, their bases are covered with
fields of light-green maize, which looks like young sugar-cane at a
distance. On the south side of the harbour runs the new railway
with its many cuttings and bridges ; it is to be opened in January
next. We landed at the head of the bay beyond Quarantine or
St. Simon Island, and proceeded at once to lay out the seine and
then haul it up on the beach of the mainland. The beach here-
about is broad and sandy, but there were only a few fish caught.
Many old men, fisher boys, girls and matrons, shoi-t and yellow-
skinned and black-haiced and full of good humour, came down from
the village to see what was going on, and one of our party was very
industrious with his pencil in sketching them as well as the seining
party. One old gentleman thoroughly enjoyed skylarking with
the youngsters. Adams (our general messman), by the Duke's
invitation, and in memory of the old Sultan days, has come to super-
intend the lunch, consisting partly of the fish just caught, which
he has spread out in a maize field at the top of a small cliff. We
found it very hot in the sun, and those who had brought umbrellas
were glad to use them. One of the fisher lads of the village volun-
teered to show the blue-jackets a better place to cast the seine, about
a mile further on round a small promontory to the north of where
we were ; he jumped into the boat with them, and while they were
pulling round we all walked there along the beach. Here, though
the net was hauled two or three times again, in spite of the
most sanguine hopes and the most vigorous gesticulations, we
failed to secure anything except much green seaweed, which made
the net exceedingly heavy, and a few cuttle-fish and stray crabs.
The green seaweed was at once collected by the peasants and
carried off in carts for manure. Some of us fancied that the
friendly fisher-boy who had directed our labours hither, had had an
end in view other than that he professed ; and certainly our labours
profited his village friends more in this way than they did our-

200 CRUISE OF H,M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

selves as far as fish were concerned. The tide was falling fast and
many boats of fishermen were now putting out to go further down
the harbour in order to net fish on the tide turning. There was a
small fight between two young bulls, which had been brought down
to the beach by two young girls, who were powerless to restrain
them, until one girl more clever than the other stopped the
combat by throwing a quantity of green food between them ; they
paused at once and down went their noses in the fodder in peaceful
happiness. A quantity of black sheep and pigs were also driven
down to the beach, but for what reason was not apparent, unless
it be for rubbing their muzzles in the salt. The whole of our
party, old and young, with shoes off", waded about in the water and
picked up the cockles, which are very abundant, and of which
large quantities were consumed before we divested ourselves of
the rest of our clothing and had a good swim in the bay. We got
away about 7.45 P.M. in the steam launch, and steamed round the
north end of St. Simon's Island and so out and down the harbour.
It was a splendid evening, and at sunset the lovely eflfects of light
on the hills and clouds were the delight and the despair of the
artist of our party. We had to go easy many times while passing
through the nets which the fishermen had spread here and there
in the three miles of narrows to catch the fish that were coming in
with the returning tide, and which they were watching in their
boats, shouting to us as we passed. We got on board about 9 P.M.
August Srd, — Name day of the Duchess of Edinburgh, and (as
the Duke is with the fleet) the combined squadrons dressed with
masthead flags, and the Russian standard at the main. The flag*
ship (Minotaur) fired a royal salute at noon. The band of the
Bacchante played on board the Hercules at the Duke's dinner in
the evening. Bacchante was coaling all day.

AugvM 4th. — Manned and armed boats. In the afternoon
walked through the town of Vigo, where there is much new build-
ing going on ; the houses are white in front, and some have pretty
iron verandahs and curious screens; but the smells are more
powerful than pleasing. The water supply here is so bad that it
has long been forbidden to the Queen's ships to take any from the
shore ; there are, however, plenty of beer and grog shops, which
seemed to be pretty largely patronised by the liberty men of the
fleet. Walked on right up to the fort at the top of the hill : saw
here, for the first time, vines gi*owing over trellises at a short
distance from the soil. It is a mountainous country inland, but the

1880.

AT VIGO.

207

view is not much except across the harbour and towards its head.
As the English walk about on shore here they are hailed by the little
boys with " I say," " I say," which appears to them very amusing.
Returned down a splendid avenue of old trees into the town, and
after waiting a short time on the esplanade, where some of our
fellows were playing lawn-tennis on the grass, which has been
levelled for a court by the Achilles, we went off in a shore-boat in
order to be in time for bathing from the ship, which we have enjoyed
very much each day we have been here. Just before leaving the
esplanade we saw the procession of a priest and sacred image start
to go out to the small hill outside the town ; crackers and fireworks
were let oflF before it every now and then as a sort of salute and
to draw people's attention.

Admiral Sir William Hewett came on board to-day ; he came out
in the Warrior, as Captain Douglas's guest, to see the steam tactics;
the Duke will give him a passage to England in the Hercules.

VIGO TO COWES.

Date.

From Previous Noom.

At Noon.

Tl!aiPKRA.TURE.

Course.

Distance.

Wind.

Lai

Long.

Sea.

Air.

SaU.

Steam.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon.

P.M.

Ang.

8S.

9
10
11
12
13

N. 67 W.
N. 14 E.
N. 80 E.
N. 89 E.
N. 27 E.
N. BE.
•••

...

88
120
119
125

25
164

18
8

S.W. 3,

N.W.87-3

N.W. 8

N.AV. 8-5

N.W. 4-2

N.W. 8-4

N.&N.E.1

N.E. 2-3

N.E. 8-4

N.E. 2-3

miles.

42-46
4411
45-54
47-38
49-29
49-32
50-33

19-26
9*59
8*34
710
5-44
5-7
1-0

•
64

66
65
64
64
62
62
62
64

65
65
68
63
62
62
63
64

69
69
66
98
67
69
69
70

69
69
66
66
66
67
71
72

Total distance

. 743

• '■

August 5th. — ^Admiral Hood shifted his flag from the mizen to
the fore on promotion from Bear- to Vice- Admiral : the Affincourt
saluted the flag with fifteen guns. There is evidently some fSte on
with that image at the top of the hill, for we can see quite well a
small concourse of people clustering up there, and they are still
firing crackers and rockets. At 4 P.M. weighed and followed the
other ships of the squadron out of the bay by the northern entrance
(the same by which we had entered). The Warrior's machinery is

208 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

disabled, and she is prevented from following us out, so she
remains at anchor. The Bacchante is told oflf by the admiral to
pass on the signals which the Warrior was then making about
her accident. When outside, shaped course north-west-half-north.
Glad to be at sea again.

Augvst 6th, — Duke of Edinburgh's birthday. Prepared for
action aloft, exercised at general quarters. At 12.10 the Warrior
and Salamts (Commander A. Fitzgeorge) are observed coming out
from Vigo to rejoin the flag. We are pitching somewhat, but not
sufEciently to interrupt the usual gymnastic instruction on the
horizontal bar after evening quarters.

August 7th, — At 9 a.m. all the squadron made plain sail, as there
was a brisk breeze from the north-west, and continued so (with
steam) during the whole day — a rare sight in the present day,
thirteen men-of-war under canvas. After evening quarters took in
second reef of topsails, and before midnight furled sails as wind
had shifted and then fell light.

August 10th. — The last two days have been beautifully fine
weather, calm with bright sunshine. Since we have been with the
squadron our men have been digging out much better, as com-
petition seems to have put them on their mettle. For times of drill
the Bacchante has usually been fourth or fifth ship in the squadron,
although in the heavy drills we have hard work to hold our own
against the larger complements of the bigger ships. But com-
petition with the other ships' companies at sail drill has sharpened
up our men considerably. They had rather fallen off through the
ship having been so long in the dockyard, but are now beginning
to work much better together, so that when we join the Flying
Squadron we hope to be by no means the worst of the crews. Sail
drill was formerly so important that it is still part of the routine of
every day on board a man-of-war when weather permits. This
drill consists in taking in as rapidly as possible every sail that the
ship can carry ; a vessel may be seen with every sail set alow and
aloft, and in three or four minutes all will be taken in except
close-reefed topsails that would be carried in a gale of wind ; or a
sail is supposed to be split, and it is at once furled, sent down, and
replaced by a new one from the sail-room ; or a spar is supposed
to be sprung, when all sail on it must be immediately taken in, the
injured spar must be replaced by a sound one ; then the yards are
again sent up and the sails set as before. Signal for the special
drill which the Admiral may select on any particular evening to be

1880. VIGO TO COWES. 209

executed by all the ships of the squadron is made from the flagship ;
when it is hauled down all the men scamper aloft, and each ship
endeavours to perform the evolution or drill ordered in shorter time
than another. For a ship to excel in exercise aloft the highest
degree of organisation is required ; the intricate tracery of ropes,
whose various purposes to the landsman appear so hopelessly con-
fusing, is to the sailor a beautiful and perfectly adapted machine
for controlling the spars and sails which give life and motion to
his ship, as his own sinews and muscles give motion to his body.
As our muscles are du-ected by reason and instinct, so must these
ropes be manned by men familiar with the objects they serve. If
a sail is to be taken in, men are stationed to let go some ropes and
to haul on others. If the man is flurried and loses his head, and
lets go his rope too soon or too late, the sail may be split, the yard
may be sprung, and the safety of the men, or even of the ship
herself, may be endangered. Sail drill is therefore not only useful
for a gymnastic exercise to the men, but as a training for them
in readiness, handiness, and general smartness. We are making up
for the Lizard and towards evening pass several outward-bounders
under full sail coming down Channel. Sighted the Lizard Lights
at 8 P.M. Admiral made signal to alter course in succession ; while
we were doing so a thick fog came on, through which, however, the
stars overhead were clearly visible. The flagship was firing the usual
half-hour gun, and each ship sounding her pendants with the steam
whistle, or siren, in succession, every ten minutes during the whole
night as we steamed away and stood ofl* from the land ; the fog
lifted for a little about midnight.

Augvst 11th. — In the morning watch several brilliant meteors were
observed ; at 5 A.M. when the fog lifted and cleared off" the whole
fleet was in station. As we watched the sun rise out of the sea
and over the fog, the orb came up first red and then golden, and
next the fog-streaks, blown by the wind from the east as it were
*' away from before the path of the chariot of the mounting king,*'
were spread high up overhead. At first, as day dawned, the hulls
of the ironclads loomed, one after the other, dark through the fog,
and then shortly afterwards as their wet sides caught the rays of
the increasing sunlight they glistened for a few minutes as if
they had been magically changed to white.

At 6.30 A.M. altered course in succession 16 points to port. The
Admiral made a signal that he was very pleased with the way the
ships kept station during the fog last night, and then at 8.15 the

VOL. I. P

210 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

Beserve Squadron parted company, and a signal was made to
Bacchante to proceed to Spithead, as the Channel Squadron were
about to spread for target practice. We steamed away up mid-
Channel. A calm day, bright sun, and what little wind there was
from the east. Passed more ships on their way down Channel
under full sail. Overtook the Hector as she was making up for
Southampton Water : we were going 8 knots and easily passed her-
Sighted H.M.S. Porcupine on the starboard bow and exchanged
numbers with her. Sighted the Start Point at 6 P-M. and passed it
and its light at 8 P.M. Looked out towards Dartmouth and saw the
high land there ; it was a clear starry night and the young moon
set shortly after the sun.

Augttst 12th, — ^At 1 A.M. sighted the SI i ambles Light, and at
5.30 A.M. H.M. brig Marten made her number, and in the breakfast
hour we were oflF St. Catherine's Point. After divisions put target
overboard and fired shot and shell at it, oflF Ventnor. Which done,
passed on up Channel; Shanklin, Brading, and the white cliffs
of St. Helens all standing out clear over the calm grey sea.
Although there was a good breeze from the east the thermometer
was over 70^ At 1.30 made our number to the Ihcke of Wellington,
and observed H.M.S, Hecla lying at Spithead, where we came to an
anchor at 3.40 P.M. While the captain had gone up harbour, to
call on the Port Admiral, the Princess of Wales with our three
sisters came on board from the yacht Fortuna, with Miss KnoUys,
Sir H. Keppel, Sir Allen Young, and Lord Charles Beresford : and
after them came the Prince of Wales from the Zuleika, with
Captain Stephenson, as they happened to be cruising in this
direction. They stayed on board about three-quarters of an hour,
and then returned to Cowes. The Hecla (Captain Morgan Singer)
sailed the same evening for the Mediterranean.

August ISih. — At 1 a.m. arrived H.M.S. Newcastle (Captain
Kelly), and during the morning arrived also H.M. ships Minotaur
and Penelope, At 12.30 weighed and proceeded under steam for
Cowes, where we anchored in the Boads at 2.30 P.M., at a safe
distance from the shore and shipping. The same afternoon we
went for a cruise in the yacht Formosa, and returned on board in
the evening. Found Belleisle at Cowes as guardship. The Lively,
bearing the Duke of Edinburgh's flag, and the Hector arrived at
Cowes.

August lUh, — At noon we went on board the B.Y. Osborne and
proceeded to Portsmouth, where we went over the dockyard with

1880.

AT COWES.

211

Admiral the Honourable F. A. Foley, especially to see the 81-ton
gun hoisted from the lighter preparatory to being placed on board
the Inflexible, and then lunched with Prince Edward of Saxe-
Weimar at Government House. We afterwards attended the
athletic sports, on the new recreation ground, between the two
Services; the Princess of Wales gave away the prizes. It was a
lovely day. We returned to Cowes in the evening.

AT COWES.

Date.

Wind.

Temperature.

Sesk

Air.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Aug.

N.E. 2-8

15 8.

N.E. 2-3

N.E. 2-4

E.N.E.4-6-8

N.E. 4-2

N.E. 21

N.E. 2-8

228.

E. 8 5

August 15th. — The Prince and Princess of Wales and our three
sisters, and the Duke of Edinburgh, with Miss Knollys, Sir H.
Eeppel, Captain Stephenson, and Lieutenant Le Strange, came on
board to morniDg service, which was held on the quarter-deck, under
the awning. In the afternoon the Himalaya passed to the west-
ward with troops for the Afghan War.

August IQth, — At drill with the other mids before breakfast, and
saw the Osborne going away to Portsmouth, where the Prince of
Wales presented new colours to the 23rd Koyal' Welsh Fusiliers.
Had school in the forenoon, and in the afternoon gun drill and
gymnastics on the horizontal bar. The Osborne made fast to her
buoy at 8 P.M. when we went on board for a short time.

August l^th, — Cowes regatta. Yacht sailing races going on
during the day, with a nice breeze from the east. Pretty sight
watching them round the Prince Consort's buoy, which is close
under Bacchante* s stem.

August IQth, — Went up to Osborne to see the Queen and the
Empress Eugenie, who returned from the Cape on the l7th, and is
staying there ; and afterwards went in the OAome with Captain

p 2

212 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

Lord Charles Scott, the first lieutenant, and four gun-room mess-
mates, westward through the Needles, round into Christ Church Bay
where we landed and had a seining party on the beach. We had
some difficulty in getting ashore at the mouth of the little river
and some of us got rather a ducking. After lunch we had fine fun
hauling the seine : we all of us, as it was a warm summer s day,
were in the water with our clothes on ducking and swimming
abaut ; two of the leading hands in these gambols were the two
rival captains (Bacchante and Carysfort) who seemed to revive the
memory of their gun-room days, when they were youngsters
together. Lady Waterford came down on to the beach from the
house just above. On going on board the Osborney several of the
party, as the steam launch came alongside, jumped overboard, but
all, after a longer or shorter swim, came safely up the gangway,
more or less blown and glad to go below and change their clothes.
Returned to Cowes before dusk,

August 20<A. — In the forenoon the steam pinnace was away firing
outrigger torpedoes, and in the afternoon blew up an old shore
boat, bought for the occasion, by a hand-charge. At 4 p.m:., race
between the oflScers of the Victoria and Albert and those of the
Oshome, in six-oared galleys, in which the latter won. At 8. p.m.
the Prince of Wales came on board to dine with Captain Lord
Charles Scott and the oflScers of the ship. The dinner was under
the poop and the guests were, Admiral Sir H. Keppel, G.C.B.,
Captain Thomson ( Victoria and Albert), Captain Carter {Hector),
Captain Stephenson, C.B., StaflF- Captain Balliston, and Mr. Francis
Knollys. Afterwards the £a/xhante Snowdrop Minstrels performed
on the quarter-deck : and when the Prince of Wales left, the
ship was lit up with blue lights.

Avgtid 2\«t. — The Queen crossed to Portsmouth in the
Victoria and Albert with Alberta, in order to bid farewell to the
Rifle Brigade, who were leaving this day. Her Majesty went on
board the Jumna and was met there by the Prince and Princess of
Wales, who had previously crossed over from Cowes in the JSlJin.
Admiral Sir Cooper Key arrived from London and stayed the night
on board the Osborne. The next morning, after church, the Jumna
passed, with the Rifle Brigade on board, outward bound for India,
and was cheered by the three yachts, the Hector and the Ba/xhante.

August 23rd. — At 9 A.M:. weighed and proceeded to Spithead
(eight miles), where we anchored at 10.40 A.M., and all the afternoon
were employed getting out powder and shell, and the next day

1880. IN DOCKYARD AGAIN. • 213

proceeded up harbour and secured alongside the Sheer Jetty,
where we remained until September 11th, preparing for our cruise
with the Detached Squadron (amongst other things re-shipping our
forecastle gun, hoisting out and shifting ballast). The Inconstant,
commissioned to-day, is to bear the flag of Rear- Admiral the Earl
of Clanwilliam, C.B., with Captain Fitzgerald as flag captain. She
has, apparently, a fine ship's company ; we see them almost every
day marching down through the dockyard to their ship, as they are
at present berthed on board a hulk till they have made her
ready. Seamen proper are entered as boys, who are instructed for
some time (usually two years) in training-ships before being drafted
for sea service. The limits placed in recent years by the Legisla-
ture on the means of enforcing discipline in the Navy have rendered
necessary great care in the selection of boys, so as to exclude
any whose antecedents are such as to render it probable that
there would be diflSculty in controlling them under the regulations
now in force. Even with this careful selection the maintenance
of discipline is at present suflSciently diflScult. The result of this
system of entry has been to raise considerably the tone of the
man-of-war's men, so that among the seamen of to-day, quietness
and order being the rule, the reckless, jolly sailor of tradition is
rarely found. The instruction of boys entered for the service is
most carefully carried out ; and continues on board the sea-going
ship to which they may be drafted till they are eighteen years of
age, when they are rated Ordinary Seamen, and di-aw their grog and
tobacco like full-grown men. The fleet at sea in peace time is now
not sufficient to keep all our men-of-war's men in proper practice,
so that some of them rust in harbour ships, occupied with employ-
ments which could be well met in some other way. Nothing can
be more dangerous than the idea that strong hands and stout hearts
are all that is required; with the costly and complicated ships and
weapons of the present day, high training is absolutely necessary for
the men that have the working of them, and some training for nearly
all officers. Such knowledge cannot be given in a moment. Hence
the utility of sending numbers to sea in training squadrons for the
special purpose of exercising men on salt water. But employment
in flying squadrons has not been popular, as a rule, among officers
or men, on account of its being particularly arduous and irksome.

August 25th, — Fleet surgeon A. Tumbull, M.D., joined, and
next day Lieutenant A, C. Smyth, R.M.L.I. Four days' leave
were given to the port- watch, and when they returned, on the 31st,

214 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

four days' leave were given to starboard-watch. From September
1st to the 10th the Bacchante was preparing for foreign cruise.
On Monday, September 6th, there was a pulling race at Cowes
between the boats of the Osborney Seaflower, and Esk. The Osborne* 8
galley (seamen), steered by Eddy, came in first, and the officers*
crew of the Osborne^ steered by George, came in second. On the
7th the Lords of the Admiralty arrived at Portsmouth, and came on
board the Baccfiante on the 9th, on which day also Admiral the
Earl of Clanwilliam and Captain Lord Charles Scott dined on
board the Osborne with the Prince of Wales. On Saturday,
September 11th, the Bacchante proceeded to Spithead in the
forenoon, and on Monday, the 13th, we hoisted in our powder
and shell.

Sept, l^th, — The Prince of Wales, with Prince John of Glucksburg
(brother of the Princess of Wales), Prince Louis of Battenberg.
Sir H. Eeppel, and Captain Stephenson, came with us on board
the Baccfiante at Spithead. The weather was wet, rough and
squally, though every now and then the sun shone out brightly for
a few minutes, during one of which intervals the Prince of Wales
and his party were photographed with the officers under the
poop. They, after lunching on board, proceeded in the Bacchante,
which weighed shortly after 4 P.M., from Spithead down the
Solent towards Cowes. At 5.40 p.m., about midway, the Prince
of Wales left, and went on board the Osborne (which was accom-
panying us) in order to return to London. About this time there
was a succession of fierce squalls with heavy rain, as thick as hail,
which completely hid everything fi-om view within a few yards of
the ship, and this rendered it somewhat difficult to communicate
with the Osborne. The last we saw of her through the mist and
rain was with the signal flying bidding us *' Farewell and God's
speed." We anchored oflf Cowes at 6.30 p.m. for the night. Our
cruise, as now planned, will take us right round the world with the
Training Squadron. We hope to get through the Straits of
Magellan by the end of December into the Pacific; and, after
visiting Chili, Peru, Quito, and the Yosemite Valley from San
Francisco, to arrive at Vancouver's Island by May ; and to proceed
by the Sandwich Islands and Japan to Cbina,where we hope to arrive
not later than September, in order that during October (if duty
permits) a visit may be paid to Pekin. This is the one month in
the whole of the year, owing to the alternations of extreme heat
and cold which there prevail, during which such visit would be at

1880. PROJECTED CRUISE OF TRAINING SQUADRON.

215

all practicable ; and this is the one date of all others that will
therefore be strictly adhered to. This projected cruise of a Flying
Squadron to the Pacific was originally designed in the same way
as preceding ones for the training of the oflScers and seamen of
Her Majesty's fleet, and the passages were to be made almost
entirely under sail. The Bacchante is to cruise for a month oflT
the northern coast of Spain till the squadron comes together at
Vigo ; and this is to be the cruise as at present arranged —

Dis-
tance.

At
Sea.

Approximate
Dates

In Har-
bour.

Approximate
Dates.

Portsmouth to Vigo or Ferrol

Vigo to Madeira

Madeira to St. Vincent

Miles.

650

600

1020

S600

980

1760

990

400

700

650

2760

700

2400

3600

860

300

600

roo

1500

800

md Fens

Qd the Ci

1400

2400

130S

1 perhaps

Day

8
80

8
12

5
28

SO
SO

4
12

6
Qg. I
ipebe

Join^

Sept. 8 to 18

28 to 28

Oct 6 to IS

18 to Nov. 17
Nov. 27 to Dec. 6

Dec. 15 to 27

Jan. 8 to 16

Days.
10

5
10

7
12

8
21

2
21
80
14
14

28
10
14

... Froir

ered hon

return t

7
7
2

Sept 13 to 28

28 to Oct. 5
Oct 13 to 18
Nov. 17 to 27
Dec. 6 to 12

27 to Jan. 8
Jan. 16 to 28
26 to 29
Feb. 4 to 26
March 2 to 4
April llo21

28 to May 23
June 21 to July 6
Aug. 5 to 20
23 to SO
Sept 3 to 10

14 to Oct 2
Oct 17 to 27
Nov. ltol4

26 to Dec. 8
i Singapore visit
le thonce (and the
hrough Suez Canal

Jan, 13 to 20
22 to 29

Feb. 13 to 15
iting Egypt, spend
amer cruise.

St. Vincent to Montevideo ...

Montevideo to Kalklands

Falklands to Valparaiso

Valfuuraiso to Islay

Islay to Callao

Callao to Guayaquil

Ooayaquil to Galapagos

Galapagos to San Francisco...
San Francisco to Vancouver

Vancouver to Honolulu

Honolulu to Yokohama

Yokohama to Kobe

23 to 26

29 to Feb. 4...
Feb. 25 to March 2

March 4 to 31

April 21 to 28

May 28 to June 21
July 5 to Aug. 5 ...

Aug. 20 to 28

30 to Sept. 3

Sept. 10 to 14

Oct. 12 to 17

Kobe to Nagasaki

Nagaaaki to Ciiefoo ...,

Chefoo to Shanghai

Shanghai to Hong-kong

Hong-kong to Bangkok

Bangkok to Singapore

Sarawak, Malacca i
visit to Australia u
thus—

Singapore to Triucomalee ...

27 to 31

Nov. 14 to 26

Deo. 8 to 9

r the squadron be ord
given up), then would

Jan. ItolS

20 to 22

Colombo to Aden

29 to Feb. 13..

Aden to Suez

Easter in Syria, axu

Feb. 15 to 25

[editerranean fleet for

After vis
their aut

SPITHEAD TO PORTLAND.

WlKD.

Distance... 55 miles.

N.W. 3-6, S.W. 87

S.W. 7, N.W. byN. 7*6

N.W. 3-6, N.N.E. 9-8

Temperature.

Sea.

Air

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon.

6 p.m.

65
64
64

64
64
64

62
64
65

60
60
64

216

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE,

1880.

Sept. \bth» — Weighed at 3 P.M. The sun was shiniag brightly
though the gale continued. Lord Colville and Sir Allen Young
came on board, and the latter proceeded with us as far as
Yarmouth, where we again anchored at 5.30 P.M. Found here
H.M.S. Forcupine surveying. After evening quarters we had the
vaulting horse up for the first time on the quarter-deck and did
some gymnastics. A very dirty night, and barometer very low ;
until the weather moderates it is no use going further down
Channel, as we are not hurried or pressed for time.

Sept. 16th, — At 6 A.M. mids all out at their club and dumb-bell
exercises before breakfast: at 9.30 A.M. weighed and proceeded
under steam through the Needles for Portland. The wind is
blowing a strong gale from the north-east off the land, where it
seems comparatively clear, and thus we take our last look of Christ
Church Bay, then old Harry, Durlston Head, Tilly Whim, the
new lighthouse foundations on Anvil Point, St. Aldhelm's Head,
Chapman's Pool, Encombe, Swire Head, and so on to Lulworth
Cove. In the afternoon, about 2.30 p.m., dropped a target over-
board and fired at it with shot and shell; the gun, manned by
the marines, shot it clean away. Anchored at Portland at 4.30 P.M.
and found there the Warrior^ Boscawen, and Nautilus.

AT PORTLAND.

Date.

WlKD.

Tkmperatube.

Sea. Air.

Noon.

0 P.M. Noon.

6 p.m.

18
19 s.

N.N.E. 4-6, N.W. 3-4
N.W. 3-4, W.S.W. 6-7-8
W.S.W. 6-6, W.N.W. 1-2

68
62
62

68
62
63

68
60
57

63
61
60

Sept. 17th. — In the morning running Whitehead torpedoes, one
of which went to the bottom and stuck in the mud, but by dredging
it was set free, rose to the surface, was then secured and taken
on board again. (Each torpedo is worth 500/. We carry only six,
and always practise with two in order not to damage the other four.)
Mr. Perceval, of the Royal Yacht Squadron, came in this afternoon
in the cutter yacht Caprice : he is a keen fisherman and has been
setting his trammel net in the bay. He dined on board, and his

1880.

POllTLAND TO FERROL.

217

various yarns on the subject have acted as an incentive to make us
desirous of following his example elsewhere.

SepL ISth. — Firing at a target a short distance from the ship
with the boat's guns (nine-pounders). The Guernsey steamboat
came into the Roads with a disabled telegraph ship in tow, and a
number of small coasting vessels have taken shelter behind the
breakwater. We hear from Abergeldie that the weather in the
Highlands has been very fine. Here, however, it is still quite
the reverse, with torrents of rain and pretty continuous strong
westerly winds, which would be dead ahead for going down
Channel.

PORTLAND TO FERROL.

Datb

Fbom Frxyious Noom.

At Noon.

Tempe&aturb.

Course.

Distance.

Wind.

Lat.

Long.

Sea.

Air.

Sail.

Steam

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Sept.

...

N.N.W. 4-6,
N.W. 3-4

...

100

N.W. 5-4

49-55

S. 67 W.

...

112

N.W. 3-4,
W. 2-3

49-11

7-41

S. 34 W.

107

W.S.W. 21,
Calm

...

9-11

S. 87 W.

S.S.E. 3,
S.S.W. 2-3

...

10-21

S. 7 W.

...

S.S.W. W. 2,
N. 2-3

45-47

10-30

26 s.

S. 26 E.

...

N.E. 2-3, E.
by S. 1-2

44-46

9-48

S. 28 £.

91
286

E. by S. 4-5

38.

43 28

8-20

334

Tol

tal distaDC

5ij... 65

!0 mill

Sept. 20th. — The barometer seems slowly rising, and the wind is
now in the north-west and therefore no longer dead ahead, but
on the starboard bow for going down Channel, so at 2.30 we
weighed under steam and proceeded out of Portland Roads.
Fine weather overhead, and there seems every prospect of its
continuing. (It is a curious coincidence that just one year ago we
started from this same port on our first cruise to the West Indies.)
Rounded the breakwater, and then on through the Race, ship
going steady as a rock : Pennsylvania looked very pretty in its

218 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

dell : and so out into the Channel. As soon as the anchor was
catted and fished, after evening quarters, up went the bar and we
were at gymnastics again. We are going very slowly, and only
make between three and four knots over the ground, as there is
a strong tide against us; the wind is fresh but not against us.
Though we had heard in the morning that the sea was running
high we did not find it so, the ship was very steady all down
Channel. We lost sight of Portland Lights at 7 P.M. and sighted
the Start at 9 P.M., and before turning in thought of our old
Dartmouth days. In order that we may realise the more readily
what is going on at home from hour to hour we shall keep the
two little timepieces in our cabin always at Greenwich time. At
present the hours at home and those on board are the same, but
when once we begin to go westward the ship's time will rapidly

fet behind English time. Already it feels warmer than at
^ortland.

S^t 2l8t. — At 3.30 A.M. observed the light on Plymouth
breakwater, and at 8 A.M. were thirty-one miles off the Lizard.
There were several fogbanks drifting about in the Channel; we were
in one aU the forenoon, but got out of it at 11 A.M. ; but shortly
after the dinner-hour another closed over us which came floating
up before the wind, which is now south-west, with mist and rain ;
this gave us a chance of trying new arrangements with the steam
whistle, which kept up its lugubrious, but neceaiary sighing all
day. The wind freshened from the south-west in the evening,
drifting the fog before it. We saw the sun go down behind a
double fogbank ; one was a golden colour and the other a dull
leaden grey. The streaks of this latter lay across those of the
former, and were at first lower down on the horizon. They created a
curious appearance as they rose bodily and slowly up off the
surface of the sea, and allowed the yellow to shine out under them
as well as above. At half-past five we are abreast of the Wolf
Rock, and at 8.30 p.m. off St. Agnes and the Bishop ; we are
making very slow progress; there is no wind worth speaking
of, but somewhat of a swell still on.

Sept 22nd, — Bright clear morning, fog all gone, the sea a magnifi-
cent blue; shaped course for Ferrol, west-south-west. Shoals of
porpoises came plunging round the ship, tempting targets once
more for the harpoon off the glacis, but it is no go. Their flesh is
no use for eating, but their skin makes capital leather. There is
a warmer feeling in the air. We are now about the spot where

1880. PORTLAND TO FERROL. 219

we parted company from the combined squadrons on our return
from Vigo.

Sept, 2'^rd. — In the forenoon, after morning prayers, made
plain sail, and after the dinner-hour raised the screw. The sea
was very smooth and there was just a little breeze from the south-
east. Although we are making very little progress yet the quiet
motion of the ship through the water under sail, after the constant
thud and vibration of the screw, was most delightful. Porpoises
still gambolling round. At noon Ferrol is 270 miles distant. It
is seldom that this part of the Bay of Biscay is as we find it to-
day, scarce ruffled by wind or swell. But each of the five times
that we have crossed the Bay in the Bacohante we have been
favoured by most beautiful weather.

Sept, i4tth. — Making very little way ; wind nearly all gone.
In the afternoon, after we have had our usual gymnastics on the
horse and bar, it became misty and drizzling, and the wind
falling altogether we were flopping idly about in the centre of the
Bay on the swell which was now coming up from the south-west,
so at 5.30 P.M. got the screw down, but did not steam. After
quarters wore ship and again at 9.16 P.M., the wind being very
light. There was a mist and fog when the moon rose, and at
10.30 P.M. a fine lunar rainbow in the west. This was on the mist
in the opposite quarter of the heavens to the moon, and formed a
Bort of silver arch with very faint prismatic colours. The stars
were glinting and winking mysteriously over the top of it through
the misty vapour, and we thought that if any Danish elves had
lost their way and got so far south they might be dancing along it,

'* Or going up with music
As on cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern lights."

Sept. 2oth, — At 6.30 A.M. got the screw up again as the fog has
cleared, and set the stunsails, the wind being fair, northerly and
light. At 8 A.M. we were 180 miles from Ferrol. One of the
loveliest days we have yet had, with the sun shining brightly, and
as our course is due south there is a gentle steady breeze right aft.
Existence itself is a pleasure as we glide with a gentle rocking
motion over the sea. After evening quarters let go the life-buoy,
hove the ship to, and lowered the life-boat (making belief that a
man had fallen overboard), picked up the buoy, which of course
had floated astern, in three minutes after it had been first let

220 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

go. The top of these life-buoys is furnished with a self-acting
light which will bum for twenty-four minutes. Directly the
buoy is set free, as it can be by any one on deck, from where it
always hangs in the stem of the ship, it lights itself and so can be
seen on the water during the darkest night. The lights are placed
on the buoys after evening quarters every day at sea.

SepL 26th, — At 8 A.M. we were 100 miles from Ferrol ; almost a
dead calm. With stunsails set both sides, we are only making a
little over two knots ; the sea is as blue as a hyacinth, only a few
clouds flecking the sky ; but slowly up from the north-east came a
breeze, strengthening hour by hour, cool and fresh out of the Bay,
which blew the waves slightly foaming on our port-beam, until after
evening service it was strong enough to carry us along six knots,
and in the first watch over seven. There were a few yellow jelly-
fish floating round us in the morning ; and one great white fellow
kept rolling himself about two feet out of the water astern and then
subsiding till he rose again. He was too far off to distinguish who
he was or what was his name ; but he didn't belong to the porpoise
family — his behaviour was quite different from theirs. A number
of gulls and Mother Carey's chickens kept following the ship, whose
breasts, as they wheeled in the sunlight, glanced out a yellowish
brown ; their movements were as graceful as can be conceived as
they thus circled in pairs at play together ; it almost seemed as if
they were aware we were watching and admiring their exhibition.
Beautifril starlight night.

Sept. 27th, — At 5.30 A.M. down screw, shortened and furled sails
before breakfast, and began steaming at seven. Sighted the coast-
line of Spain, with its mountains, through a golden haze, while the
sea is blue and crisped with what is now a headwind for us, as we
make up for Ferrol. We steamed in through the narrow entrance,
which reminded us of the entrance to Dartmouth Harbour, past
two forts on the bare hill-sides, where there is a sharp tum which
brings you right under the guns of one of the forts. At 12.30 we
anchored. It is nearly 10** warmer in here than it was outside. We
can see the Spanish dockyard and towers of Ferrol over the trees
on the Marina, and the training-ship for Spanish naval cadets is
lying moored in the middle of the north side of the harbour. The
captain called on the Captain-General, the Vice-Admiral, and the
Admiral of the port.

Sept. 2Sth. — ^After morning school the boats were away exercising
under sail; the whaler, in charge of George, did very well. In

1880.

PORTLAND TO FERROL.

221

AT FERROL.

Datk.

Wind.

Tempkbature.

8ea.

Air.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon

6 p.m.

Sept.

Oct.

3 s.

E. 51, N.E. 3.4

E. 3 3. N.E. 21

Vaiiablel-2

Calms

Calms S.W. 3*4

S.W. 7-6

S.W. 8-6-3, S.S.W. 2-6.

SiW. 7.10, WiS.7
W. byS. 3-7, S.W. 3-5
S.S.W. 3-6, W.S.W. 2-4

63
63
63

63
63
63
63
62
01
60
60

62
63
62

63
63
68
63
62
61
60
60

76
73

68
70
76
72
69
63
60
60

71
72

72
70
70
70
68
60
60
60

the afternoon went on shore for a walk, passed the dockyard, which
is extensive but apparently quite deserted, and the huge barracks
are standing now without a single occupant. Then up through the
town, which is large and clean ; the streets are paved with flat blocks
of stone, but no wheel or horse traflSc exists. There are some
good shops — one large chemist in particular ; every street is at right
angles to the other; then up to the north gate of the town. There
are extensive walls all round, with forts which enclose a space ten
times too large for the present inhabitants and which they say has
never been fully occupied. These mediaeval walls are now all falling
to ruins. The glass-enclosed balconies, painted bright green, and the
iron banisters in front of the houses have an odd effect. Walked on
outside the gate down a ferny lane to the head of the bay, and then
under huge Spanish chestnut trees amid fields of bright-green
maize to Chamorro, and up the hill, under the pines and over
heather and bracken and quantities of gentian, crocus, and violets,
that burst up from the turf on all sides. From the summit, by
a huge protruding rock which had been blasted and the stone
quarried and carried down the hill for building purposes, there was
a very fine view ; the hills of the mainland of Spain were grey
in the distance to the south, and Betanzos Bay is distinctly visible
over the high land which separates it from Ferrol Bay. Then we
came down to the old church of the Virgin on Chamorro. This is
a most curious old place, and, it is said, and appears to be, built
over Druidic stones ; a huge stone protruding from the earth is

224 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

strange-rigged boats as used hereabouts : they are flat-bottomed,
have a heavy mast, rakiug forward, and a huge sail. Arrived at
Ferrol at 6 P.M. in time for an evening bathe.

Oct. Id. — After dinner manned and armed boats, and then went
with the Vice-Consul and most of the gun-room officers on board
the AsturiaSy the training-ship for naval cadets. She is not so large
as our own Britannia, but their scheme of instruction is modelled on
ours, only instead of being a two-year it is a three-years course. She
was beautifully clean and well kept, and the arrangements for the
cadets, of whom there are 100, seemed excellent. The cadets
sleep in cots, not hammocks, and these are slung from the beams
between decks in two tiers, so they do not occupy more space than
hammocks would. The mess-room was on deck ; and the studies
are large and with a peculiar arrangement of book places. Most of
the lads are nice sturdy, open-faced youths. We heard nothing of
any cricket field or recreation ground ashore. We went over the
captain's quarters (who was not on board), and into the ward-room,
where there were some interesting pictures in oils of old Spanish
ships.

Oct. 2nd. — A large party of fifteen left the ship by starlight at
5.30 A.M. and pulled two miles across the bay to Seijo (Seiho), where
ponies had been ordered to meet us. They were a very hetero-
geneous collection both as regards beasts and saddles ; some of the
latter were very rough and scarce held together, but others were
the usual gay Spanish saddles made of carpets and side-bags, with
huge bucket-like stirrup -irons. We mounted and rode to Cabeiro.
As we jogged along the road that gradually rises the whole way,
the views that opened out were very bold ; first was Pont d'Eum^,
with its long bridge and embankment over the mouth of the river
Eume ; the village itself is on the opposite side of the valley.
Here we turned to the left, and, still rising, obtain a wider view
both over Ferrol and Betanzos Bays right away to Corunna with
the tower of Hercules. The whole of this part of the coast of
Spain is indented by large bays, more or less land-locked, and
excellent harbours ; the sea in the distance appears beautifully
blue to-day, while in the interior, range after range of hills open
out, on one of which, opposite, rises a curious tower, which belongs
to the Due d'Alba, a cousin of the Empress Eugenie. After riding
up and up, about 10 A.M. we came, over the sierras, suddenly upon a
deep glen, which opened almost beneath our feet. The road here
was very rough and it was very warm. We arrived at the chapel

1880. EUMI5 RIVER AND MONASTERY. 225

of Our Lady of the Snows, where some of the party were glad to
rest in the cool shade for half an hour. Thence we took a boy
for our guide, and began to descend on foot the valley of Eume,
the sides of which are clothed with dense woods of scrub oak,
chestnut and laurel bushes, all of a dark, glossy green ; at the
bottom of the glen runs the Eum^, over slag and pebbles, one
of the best trout and salmon rivers in Spain. It was very like a
Devonshire stream, except that the hills are here much higher.
Two of the party returned home in the evening with good baskets
of fish, trout and sea-trout, most of them over a pound. The day
was perfectly cloudless, and the river like crystal; under these
conditions the flies found most taking were a very small Wickham-
fancy, and a small red spinner. We led our ponies down the
narrow path through the woods — a very steep and rocky descent —
to the ruins of an old monastery which stands on the summit of
a knoll rising from the middle of the stream and encircled by it.
The monastery was inhabited till 1855, when Prim's Republican
Government forced the monks to retire. In many parts of the
walls the old chestnut wood beams and carved cupboards still
remain intact in their places. The building could be put in re-
pair for a small sum, and it would make a charming retreat for
any one who liked solitude and fishing. On each side, facing
north and south, are two terraces, on which the monks could
either sun themselves or enjoy the shade ; and the old chapel, in
which St. Rosendo used to oflSciate, though its roof is gone, is
still all but entire. He it was who mortified himself by wearing
an iron band round his body, which he locked up fast and threw
the key into the river there below, never to be unlocked till his sins
were forgiven. Years after he went away and became a bishop.
One day a fish was caught and taken as a present to the bishop
from the river by his old monastery. When it was opened the
key of his iron belt was found inside, a sign to him that he was
forgiven. On the walls are a few frescoes, very roughly painted ;
that of the Annunciation can be traced in the small chapel of
the Virgin which stands behind the other. The entrance to the
monastery is now over heaps of ordure, as many beasts are stabled
in the gateway, and the outhouses are apparently occupied by a
small farmer ; but once inside the buildings, it was very pleasant.
We lunched on what we had each brought in our pockets, and sat
and looked out on the hills untouched as yet by any tinge of
autumn and all one mass of glossy green, with a bright blue sky
VOL. I. Q

226 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

overhead, and the sound of the rushing waters of the stream below,
into which we soon ran down and bathed. It is just such another
as that described in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage : —

"The horrid crags, hy toppling convent crowned,
The cork-trees noar that clothe the shaggy steep,
The mountain moss by scorching skies imbrowned.
The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep.
The tender azure of the unrufiled deep,
The orange tints that gild the greenest bough.
The torrents that from cliff to valley leap,
The vine on high, the willow branch below,

Mixed in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow."

Canto L, Stanza xix.

At 12.30 we started homewards, leading the ponies up the hill
and finding it uncommonly hot. The views this way and
in the afternoon light were, if anything, more beautiful than
in the morning. We much enjoyed our ride back to Seijo,
where we arrived at 4.30 p.m., galloping and skylarking the
whole way. Here we found the cutter waiting for us; rowed
back to the ship in time for a further evening bathe. Found
they had been amusing themselves on board by laying out a
bower anchor and running torpedoes. This province (Qalicia) is
full of metals and undeveloped wealth ; but the Spaniaixl has not
enterprise to work them himself, and is averse to the introduction
of foreign capital. Wages are low, but labourers are lazy; one
Englishman will do more in one day than ten natives. There is
great official corruption and much smuggling in these parts.

Oct, Srd, — Usual Sunday services. In the afternoon many
of the young gentlemen from the Asturias paid the Bacchante
a visit on the captain's invitation, and when some of our mid-
shipmen, who were showing them over the ship, tried to explain
things in French to them, they were met by the reply " We do
not understand English." The commodore from the Vittoria
came on board, and as the barometer was falling fast (from 30*27
to 29*84), he predicted that we should have a gale next day
from the south-west, the usual St. Francis gale at this season.
After evening quarters got in the accommodation ladder, and made
ready to go to sea to-morrow morning.

Oct, ^th, St, Francis Day, — Dressed ship with masthead flags,
Spanish flag at the main, and fired a salute of twenty-one guns at
daybreak in honour of its being the name-day of Don Francesco
d'Assisi, the husband of the ex-queen of Spain and mother of the
present king. The same salute was fired at noon and for a third

1880. AT FERROL. 227

time at sunset, following the motions of the Spanish frigate and
fort. We were to have sailed to-day, but as the barometer is still
steadily falling the captain decided to remain.

Oct. 5th. — Barometer still falling all day, and a stiff breeze from
the south-west early in the morning and again in the evening,
though it lulled in the middle of the day. Brilliant meteors
observed.

Oct. 6th. — Gale from the south-west blowing very strong. The
cutter, that went in to the pier with the stewards before breakfast,
could not get off to the ship till the dinner hour. We let go the
starboard anchor and bent the sheet cable, and for three hours there
was a succession of heavy squalls, during which it was almost
impossible to stand on the poop. In the afternoon, when it
quieted down a bit, a party of five landed and went shooting over
towards Laguna. They came back in the evening without
anything : there are a few partridges, black hare and snipe, but the
exercise of walking on the hills is its own recompense.

Oct. 7th. — The barometer is rising, but the wind has backed,
and it is still squally ; a Spanish gunboat that went out of harbour
in the morning returned in the afternoon. We weighed the
starboard anchor. Qeorge went fishing with the captain to the
Jubia river. Very good sport was generally got there, the flies
found most taking were " cock-u bon dhu " and red and black
spinners; often three or four dozen trout were caught in an
afternoon to one rod.

Oct. 9th. — We left Ferrol at 3.30 p.m. under steam for five knots.
It is much colder since the gale, and there is now a moderate
breeze from the south-west ; outside there is a slight swell, but
nothing to speak of, although we saw a brig in Betanzos Bay,
approaching Ferrol, that was rolling very heavily ; we passed the
steamer from Corunna going in to Ferrol, and Were off Sisagas
Light about 10 P.M. Coming out of Ferrol is the time to read the
last chapter of Fronde's History of Ungland, Ixxi. *' The Armada."

(" In 1588, thirty years of peace were supposed abroad to have
emasculated the once warlike English nation, and to have so en-
amoured the people of quiet, that they had no longer energy to
defend their own firesides. The general impression was that if a
well-found army could be thrown on shore in any part of the
kingdom, the power of England would collapse in ruins. London
itself was undefended, and there was not a fortress in the whole
island which would delay an army for an hour. When Elizabeth's

Q 2

228

CHUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1880.

FERROL TO VIGO.

I0.OCT.82J

Date.

From Previous Noo».

At Noon.

Distance.
Steam.

Wind.

Lat.

Long.

Sea.

Air.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Oct.
9

lOS.

Distance

98
24

W. by S. 2-6,

S.W. 1-2

N.W. & W. 4-6,

S.W. 5-6, S.E. 4-5

S.E.4-5,N.W.l-2

3S.

42-4.5
42-17

9-30
9-6

60
60
61

•
60

61
62
64

58
60
62

.. 190 mil<

naval resources were all counted, including vessels which had been
built by her father and sister, the entire English navy contained
only thirteen ships above 400 tons, and in the whole fleet, including
fifteen small cutters and pinnaces, there were only thirty-eight
vessels, of all sorts and sizes, carrying the Queen's flag. The largest
ship in England at this time belonging to a private owner did not
exceed 400 tons, and of vessels of that size there were not more
than two or three sailing from any port in the country. The armed
cruisers which had won so distinguished a name in both hemi-
spheres were of the dimensions of the present schooner yachts in
the Cowes squadron. But when the moment of trial came,

1880. THE ARMADA. 229

Hawkins sent the Queen's ships to sea in such condition, hull,
rigging, spars, and running ropes, that they had no match in the world
either for speed, safety or endurance. In ordinary times one or two
second-class vessels alone were left in commission, which discharged
the duties very imperfectly of Channel police. The Navy did not
exist as a profession. The great merchants in every port armed
the best of their ships.

" The spring of 1588 was wild and boisterous beyond experience.
The Armada was to have sailed in the middle of May, but the
weather continued desperate ; a wild winter had been followed by
a wilder spring, and the lengthening days were still the only signs
of approaching summer. The summer as it deepened only became
more and more stormy. Meanwhile the slow, lingering, long-
expected Armada was approaching completion. Three nations,
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, had furnished their several
contingents. On the fleet itself the treasures of the Indian mines
had for three years been freely lavished. In the six squadrons into
which it was divided, there were sixty-five large ships ; the smallest
of them was of 700 tons, seven were over 1,000, and the largest, an
Italian, was of 1,300. All were built high, like castles, their upper
works musket-proof, their main timbers four and five feet thick.
In Plymouth Sound there were in all twenty-nine Queen's ships of
all sizes ; ten small vessels belong to Lord Howard and his family,
and forty-three privateers between forty tons and 400, under
Drake; the united crews amounted to something over 9,000 men.
The names of the Spanish and of the English ships, either by
accident or purpose, corresponded to the character of the struggle
— the SL Matthew, the St, Philip, the St, James, the St, John, the
St. Martin, and the Lady of the Bosary, were coming to encounter
the Victory, the Revenge, the Lreadnotcght, the Bear, the Lion, and
the Bull] imaginary supernatural patronage was ranged against
human courage, strength, and determination.

"The fighting fleet, or Armada proper, consisted of 129 vessels,
the smaller division of 65 galleons of larger tonnage than the finest
ship in the English navy. The store of provisions was enormous.
It was intended for the use of the army after it landed in England
and was sufficient to feed 40,000 men for six months. They sailed
from Lisbon on the 29th May. The northerly breeze which
prevails on the coast of Portugal was unusually strong. The
galleons standing high out of the water and carrying small canvas
in proportion to their size worked badly to windward. They were

230. CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCUA NTE. 1880.

three weeks in reaching Finisterre, where the wind having
freshened to a gale, they were scattered, some standing out to sea,
some into the Bay of Biscay. Their orders in the event of such a
casualty had been to mate for Ferrol. There, the weather
moderating, the fleet was again collected by the 6 th July. All
repairs were completed by the 11th, and the next day, the 12th,
the Armada took leave of Spain for the last time. The scene as
the fleet passed out of the harbour of Ferrol must have been
singularly beautiful. It was a treacherous interval of real summer.
The early sun was lighting the long chain of the Galician moun-
tains, marking with shadows the cleft defiles, and shining softly
on the white walls and vineyards of Corunna. The wind was light
and falling towards a calm ; the great galleons drifted slowly with
the tide on the purple water, the long streamers trailing from the
trucks, the red crosses (the emblems of the Crusade) showing
bright upon the hanging sails. The fruit boats were bringing oflf
the last fresh supplies, and the pinnaces hastening to the ships
with the last loiterers on shore. Out of 30,000 men, who that
morning stood upon the decks of the proud Armada, 20,000 and
more were never again to see the hills of Spain. Of the remnant
who, in two short months crept back ragged and torn, all but a
few hundreds returned only to die. The soldiers and sailors of
the doomed expedition against England were the flower of the
country, culled and chosen over the entire peninsula : they were
going upon a service which they knew to be dangerous, but which
they believed to be peculiarly sacred. Every one, seaman, oflScer,
and soldier, had confessed and communicated before he went on
board. Gambling, swearing, profane language of all kinds had been
peremptorily forbidden. Private quarrels and differences had been
made up or suspended — no unclean person or thing was permitted
to defile the Armada ; in every vessel and in the whole fleet the
strictest order was prescribed and observed. On the first evening
the wind dropped to a calm; the morning after (the 13th) a fair
fresh breeze came up from the south-west, and in two days and
nights they had crossed the Bay and were off Ushant. The same
night the wind increased to a gale and they hove to. Four galleons
were driven upon the French coast, and another foundered. The
weather was believed to be under the peculiar care of God, and
this first misfortune was of evil omen for the future. The storm
lasted two days, and then the sky cleared, and again gathering into
order they proceeded on their way. At daybreak on the morning

1880. « VENIT IVIT RUIT.» 231

of the 20 th, the Lizard was under their lee. When the Spaniards
with 150 sail, large and small, first sighted the coast of Cornwall,
Hawkins and Drake had but eighty sail in Plymouth harbour ready
for action ; they came out by moonlight that night and hovered in
their rear just out of cannon shot. Towards eight o'clock the next
morning (July 21st, 1588), the breeze freshened from the west.
The Armada made sail and attempted to close. The high-towered,
broad-bowed galleons moved like Thames barges piled with hay ;
while the sharp low English made at once two feet to the Spaniards'
one, and shot away as if by magic in the eye of the wind. It was
ajs if a modem steam fleet was engaged with a squadron of the old
fashioned three-deckers, choosing their own distance, and fighting
or not fighting as suited their convenience. On the 27th the
Armada was off Calais. But it was the action before Qravelines of
the 30th July, 1588, that decided the largest problems ever sub-
mitted in the history of mankind to the arbitrament of force.
Beyond and besides the immediate fate of England, it decided that
Philip's revolted Provinces should never be re-annexed to the
Spanish Crown. It broke the back of Spain, sealed the fate of the
Duke of Guise, and though it could not prevent the civil war, it
assured the ultimate succession of the King of Navarre to the
French Crown. In its consequences it determined the fate of the
Reformation in Germany ; for had Philip been victorious, the League
must have been immediately triumphant, the power of France
would have been on the side of Spain and the Jesuits, and the
thirty years' war would either have never been begun, or would
have been brought to a swifb conclusion. It furnished James of
Scotland with conclusive reasons for remaining a Protestant, and
for eschewing for the future the forbidden fruit of Popery, and thus
it secured his tranquil accession to the throne of England when
Elizabeth passed away. Finally it was the sermon which completed
the conversion of the English nation, and transformed the Catholics
into Anglicans. Had the Armada succeeded even partially in
crushing Holland and giving France to the League, England might
not have recovered from the blow, and Teutonic Europe might have
experienced what France experienced in the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes. The coming of the Armada was an appeal on
behalf of the Pope to the ordeal of battle, and the defeat of Spain
with its appalling features, the letting loose of the power of the
tempests — the special weapons of the Almighty — to finish the
work which Drake had but half completed, was accepted as a

232

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE,

1880.

recorded judgment of Heaven; and the magnitude of the
catastrophe took possession of the country's imagination.")

Oct. 10th, — At 1 A.M. altered course and pointed yards to the
wind, and at 3 AM. were abeam of the light on Cape Villano, and
were off Cape Finisterre at 8 A.M. ; the Cape appears to be on a
lowish island projecting from higher masses above. It is a
bright sunny morning, and several steamers are passing in either
direction. After morning service we are still oflf Cape Finisterre ; for
there is a strong current against us, and we are only going two and
a-half knots over the ground. It came on to rain towards the
evening, but we were able to see clearly Corcubion Bay, where the
survivors of H.M.S. Captain landed in 1870, After evening
quarters reduced the speed of engines.

Oct. 11th, — We stood off and on the land all night, and in the
morning were still in view of the entrances to the three bays,
Corcubion, Arosa, and Pontevedra ; this last has a fiije mountainous
coast. All the forenoon we were prize-firing, eight rounds from
each of our fourteen guns. Harrington, with the marines' gun, won
the first prize, and Tree, with George's gun, won the second. After
picking up the target, we steamed into Vigo Bay through the southern
entrance by Bayona, and anchored in our old berth, off the town,
at 5 P.M., again saluting the Spanish flag with twenty-one guns.

AT vioo.

Date.

Wl.SD.

Temperature.

Sea.

Air.

Noon.

6 p.m.

No4»n.

6 p.m.

Oct.

Variable 1-2

E. 1-2

Variable 1

Calms and S.E 2

S.S.E. 8-1

17S.

Variable 1

Calms

Calms and W. by W. 1*2

Calms and S.W. 1-4

S.W. 3-5 7

S.W. 3-8

S.W. 6-3

24S.

S.W. 3 1

Variable 1

N.E. 1-2, S.S.W. 3-7

S.W. 5 7

S.W. 7-9, W.N.W. 1

S.W. 3-6-8, Calm

S.W. by W. 3 -9 -2

1880. AT VJGO. 233

Oct. Vlth. — Usual drill and bathe before breakfast and study
afterwards. In the afternoon landed, went up into the town, and
taking the road which leads away to the -west, made for a chapel
which we saw standing on the summit of a hill in the interior.
The country is much greener than when we were here before at the
end of July with the Combined Squadrons. At one place we went
into an old churchyard, and saw a number of skulls and bones that
had been dug up in order to make room for fresh interments, as
there was not much depth of earth on the rocky hill side. These
had been placed in heaps at the back of the church, and one empty
altar tomb there had been crammed with them. The country
paths between the vineyards and the orchards are in many places
paved, and form regular water courses, on each side of which, as
in the shady English lanes, are growing numerous and fine ferns. It
is chiefly in the south of Spain that the RepubUcan feeling is
growing ; here, at Vigo, politics are subordinated to commercial
considerations ; and the members of the municipality unite in en-
deavouring to develop the capabilities of the port, which are great,
and will become still more so when the railways are open from the
interior; the more ambitious even hope to supplant Lisbon.
Meanwhile the value of land here is fast increasing ; a plot that
two years ago would have sold for 500Z., cannot now be got for
3,000Z., and building is going on in all directions. The wreck of a
barque, the Lahoramus of Dundcdk was towed into the bay this
afternoon, having been apparently abandoned by her crew at sea
as long ago as last May, so that she has been drifting about ever
since ; there are signs of fire upon her forecastle and her poop.

Oct. 13^A, St. Edward the Confessor of England. — Eddy's
name-day. Manned and armed boats in the forenoon. The
Spanish Brigadier-General commanding the troops visited the
ship, and on leaving was saluted with eleven guns. It was
damp and showery. Watching the sea-gulls astern of the
ship, where lots of them were swooping over the water after
the garbage adrift. Their curious fidgety ways and silly
looks, as they hang in the air, appear as if they were timid of
swooping for the white filth: one comes down and picks up a
piece in his beak, fluttering the whole time and not touching the
water, and then another, instead of helping himself, flies screaming
after the first, "flutter, flutter, /e^i>*f, /c^i>'f ^;" and then down

* " And who was Ceyx ? Ilalcyone was a fairy maiden, the daughter of the beach
and of the wind, and she loved a sailor-boy, and married him ; and none on earth were

234 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

comes another, half hopping, half flying, with his feet tucked up under
him, the very image of silly indecision, but manages to snip up a
morsel, which he swallows on the wing with difficulty, for, apparently,
to move the muscles of the throat while those of the wings are in
full play is not easy ; and so they wheel and wheel in ever-giuceful
curves. ^

Oct. 14ith. — The first sound that comes, borne oflF the land, in
the morning is the creaking of the ox-carts, like hurdy-gurdies,
and the same noise follows you with a sad and remorseless
monotony wherever you go on shore. Each wheel is made in two
pieces which are bolted together and, being never greased, con-
tribute, with the axle, to drown every other sound in the neigh-
bourhood of the cart. At 7 A.M., we started with the captain
and four others on a fishing excursion to San Pio, We drove
there twelve miles along the road, and then dividing, two of us
proceeded to fish down stream and caught half a dozen trout ; the
rest fished up stream and got eight dozen. We used chiefly
" cock-u bon dhu," " red spinner," and '* red ant ; " the day was
occasionally cloudy, and the water a little discoloured with the late
rains. We did not get back till 7 P.M.

Oct, 16th. — To-day, as so many other days, we were busy painting
and smartening up the boats and ship preparatory for an inspection,
often expected in the West Indies, at Bermuda, on return home,
on joining or leaving the Combined Squadron, and now again on
the coming arrival of the admiral with the Detached Squadron.
At 6.30 A.M. we started with the captain and six other officers in
the steam pinnace to go down to the mouth of the bay by Bayona.
We took an old man as a guide — with excellent recommendations —
and six " smell dogs," which were not of much use as it turned
out. Eddy for the first time used his new gun and shot two birds.
We had a happy day in the country and started several coveys of
partridges and some rabbits, but shot next to nothing. The old
man said it was our fault, but we thought it was his. Received a
telegram from England, "The Detached Squadron sailed from
Portsmouth this afternoon."

Oct. ISth. — A lovely summer's day. At 1. P.M.,both landed with
the captain for a drive with the British Consul, Sencr Barcena, to his

so happy as they. But at last Ceyx was wrecked ; and before he could swim to the
shore the billows swallowed him up. And Haley one saw him drowning, and leapt
into the sea to him ; but in vain. Then the Immortals took pity on them both, and
changed them into two fair sea-birds ; and now they sail up and down happily for
ever upon the pleasant seas." — Kingsley, Perseus^

1880. VIGO BAY. 235

country house, nine miles distant on the east of the town. (The pro-
per way to pronounce his name is Barthena : the elegant Spaniard
always lisps the C and S, and thus Andalusia is pronounced Anda-
luthea.) His servant drove us along through the town in his trap,
which washuilt in Scotland and drawn by a nice pair of little black
horses. We went right up to the head of the bay, and he pointed
out where the galleons sunk by Drake lay, and showed the fort below
from which the chain was in those days suspended across to the
opposite side (it is where there is visible on the hill by the water's
edge the remains of another fort). In the archives of the town
there is still the original petition, made by the Spanish admiral, to
the municipality for 120 carts to take the treasure up from the
ships to Madrid. There is also a further document of only a
few days later date saying that these carts were not enough to
transport the treasure and that the admiral requested 300 more.
The carts used were then very small, for the roads were very
rough : as they were also at the same date in England, when nearly
all the treasure taken from the Spanish galleon that went ashore
at the mouth of Dartmouth harbour was carried inland not in
carts at all but on pack-horses. It would appear therefore that
the greater part of, if not all, the treasure had been safely conveyed
ashore before Drake sank the Spanish ships. The French company
that has been lately organised for recovering such treasure by means
of diving is therefore all a mare's nest. There were beautiful views
over the bay as we drove along : we saw the lazaretto below and
the sandy spit on which we had drawn the seine with the Duke
of Edinburgh at the beginning of August. Arrived at the Consul's
house, which stands on the steep slope of the hill in the midst of
woods, and a garden very prettily laid out, like that at Bemstorf :
the autumn flowers are still bright, and there are many roses
and creepers, one, profusely flowered like a potato-blossom, which
nearly covers the house : the camelias, azaleas, the white fuchsias
and large bushy ericas, are still in bloom, and there are but few trees
that have even a tint of autumn upon them. The robins (bisco)
were singing (the only birds we have heard sing in Spain) and their
faint, quiet note reminded us again of England. There are a
great variety of pines, as well as semi-tropical trees, which latter
grow well here. The old house is square built and very solid, with
staircase and verandah in stone outside ; at the southern comer, on
the stone, is sculptured the coat of arms of the Consul's ancestor,
which is significant, as showing that he had signorial rights and

236 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

could cut oflf men's heads. Beneath is an old dungeon. The old house
was in ruins when he got it ; he put it in order, and made it what it
is. Wandered up the hill behind, through the wood, from openings in
which we look down on to other mountains, pine- clad and with a few
white cottages and churches here and there, and on Eedondello village
and the railway just beneath. At one place in the wood there was
a curious invention for frightening rabbits away from the plants
in the garden. It is a small trough suspended at one end of a
pole, at the other end of which is a heavy metal hammer ; the
pole is balanced on a post, about three feet from the ground.
Into this small trough water falls from a spout, and when the
trough is full its weight being then greater than the hammer,
it pitches forward and sinks to the ground; but immediately
after it has thus emptied itself, it is raised by the weight
of the hammer to its original position. The hammer thus in the
meantime has been brought into contact with an empty iron pot
turned lightly over on the top of a stick. The constant succession
of taps and hammerings thus produced by the water and the weight
frightens the animals, and when there are no more to be frightened,
you remove the tin pot from under the pole, and the trough and
hammer still repeat their see- saw motions but without disturbing
the echoes. Behind the wood the hill-top is covered with heather,
just like Scotland. We had some sweetmeats and wine under the
trees, at one corner, called Buena Vista, where Senor Barcena is about
to erect a small chapel to please Senora ; and then down into the
garden again, where there are a number of trout in artificial streams,
just like those on the slopes at Windsor, and with a little fountain
and tap too, the very image of one there.

Drove back to town, passing many women on the road carrying
heavy weights on their heads, and spindle and distaffin their hands,
spinning as they walk along ; the distaff being held against their left
shoulder and the bobbin twisted with their right hand. Here and
there, in the walls by the side of the road were also little shrines,
containing representations of the agonies of souls in purgatory ; and
little boxes below to pay for masses to assist them. Sometimes, how-
ever, these boxes serve for the money for the yearly village feast, and
the contents are kept by one man in each parish, who has to make
up the deficiency if the casual offerings of passers-by be not enough.
Before these and other shrines of the Virgin or saints, are deposited
little offerings of flowers, or a few ears of maize and Indian com,
in gratitude or else in deprecation. Of this last there have been

1880. THE SQUADRON BEGINS TO ARRIVE. 237

two crops this year, and the harvest has been very good ; the whole
country is now looking beautifully green. The maize was ori-
ginally brought into Spain by Columbus from Cuba.^ We got
back to the landing-place at Vigo by 6 P.M.

The next few days, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, 20th lo
22nd October, were windy and squally from the south-west. On
Thursday night and on Friday morning there was much lightning
in the west, but nothing occurred to interrupt the studies and the
ship's harbour routine.

Oct. 23rd.— At 4.15 A.M. to-day H.M.S. Carysfort, Captain H.
Stephenson, C.B., made her number; she came up the bay and
anchored astern of the Bacchante^ at 8 A.M. She left Portsmouth
in company with the Inconstant, on Saturday 16th, was after-
wards detached to look into Plymouth, but shortly after coming
out from that port lost sight of the Admiral and made the
best of her way here alone. Captain Stephenson is delighted
with his new ship, she is handy and very buoyant and her
feathering screw answers admirably, and saves an infinity of
trouble and time, now usually consumed in raising and lowering
screw. He has steamed here against a head wind and heavy
sea, but his little ship rises like a cork over it all. She sails
fairly well too, and has plenty of room : she carries her
guns on the upper deck and thus has her mess deck clear. The
Carysfort has brought us a spell of fine weather — since her arrival
it has been bright and sunny and it is an absolutely calm night.
Dined with Captain Stephenson and much enjoyed hearing news
from him about Abergeldie.

Oct. 2oth, St, Crispin's Day, — We read this morning the words
of Shakespeare's ideal king, Henry V., on the field of Agincourt,
fought on the Day of Crispin Crispianus :

" And Crispin Crispian shall ne*er go by
From this day to the ending of the world.
But we in it shall be remembered ;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers ;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with mo
Shall be my brother ; be he ne'er so vile.
This day shall gentle his condition :
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here.

The day is ours !
Praised be God, and not our strength, for it."

Henry V, Act iv. Sc. 3.

Hart wig, Tropical World, p. 165.

238 CRUISE OP H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

At 2.20 P.M. H.M.S. Cleoportra (Captain F. Durrant) made
her number, and afterwards anchored off the town. She lost
sight of the Inconstant on the 21st and remained two days in
the fog under sail, when she got up steam and came on here.
Her cabins aft are smaller than those in the Carysfort, owing to the
space which is occupied by the screw well (her screw does not
feather) and to the way her glacis is cut away for the training of
her after-gun. In the afternoon walked about in the town, visiting
an old pottery shop where were all sorts of quaintly shaped utensils
for common use, and then out through the Alameda and along the
La Guardia road, with the noisily creaking ox-drawn carts, to
a curious granite-built sort of wayside inn with a stone portico
and resting-place for mules and horses under the trellised vines.

Oct, 26th. — It was calm in the morning watch, and at 6.15 A.M.
H.M.S. Inconstant was observed entering the bay. At 6.45 A.M.
we saluted the flag of Rear-Ad miral the Earl of Clanwilliam, C.B.,
with eleven guns, and at 7.20 A.M. he anchored ahead of us. He
sailed from Portsmouth on the 16th, and has thus taken ten days
to come out. They had very rough weather and have brought it
on with them here, for, though it was calm when she was sighted, the
wind has been gradually getting up from the south-west, till at
midday it was blowing quite fresh (five to seven), and so continued
all the night. On the voyage out she was twice taken aback, and
lost her galley from the stern davits. She must have been in the
centre of the gale on the 21st. The Admiral made the signal that
** the squadron will proceed to sea on Sunday, the Slst, at 10 A.M."
In the afternoon the Cleopatra weighed, and went to the assistance
of a Spanish schooner which had been driven by the gale on to the
rocks at the mouth of the bay. Both of us much enjoyed meeting
our old friends in the gunrooms of the Inconstant and Carysfort,
and comparing notes with them as to their several adventures
since we had last met.

Oct. 2Sth. — In the forenoon, as there was a regular gale blowing,
we let go second anchor ; it is wet, windy and miserable, and the
general-leave men must be having a nice time ashore. The new
jolly-boat built for the captain by White, of Cowes, was brought
out by the Inconstant. In time she may become, with judicious
care and attention, a grand sailing boat. The gale continued
until midday, Friday, when, for a short time, it fell calm, but only
to return with renewed force, on the evening and night of that day
and the morning of Saturday, with heavy squalls and lightning in

1880.

DETACHED SQUADRON STARTS.

239

the south-west. During the lull Mr. Blake, the chaplain of the

Inconstant, came on board in his collapsible dingy ; when the water

is absolutely smooth, she will carry one person sculling and another

light-weight in the stem, but when there is a lop on, the corracle is

very wet and requires constant baling. A printed programme of the

cruise was sent round to the ships from the Admiral's office; we are

a month behind the date for starting from here, but doubtless shall

pick it up again at sea.

VIGO TO MADEIRA.

( MAROCCO

Datb.

From Previoub Nook.

At Nook.

Temperature.

Course.

Distance.

Wind.

Lat.

Long.

Sea.

Air.

SaU.

Steam.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.

dp.M.

Oct.
31S.
Nov.

5
6

S. 83 W.
N.87W.

S. 31 W.
S. 81-80

W.
S. 84 W.

tal distan

85
22

106
159

152
126

31
39

W. by S. 4-1

N.W. 4-5,

N.E. 6-2

N.E. 1, S.W.

by W. 6-8,

W.N.W. 7-9

N.W. 7-9

N.W. 5-7,

N.E. 5-3

N.E. 6-6

N.E. 4 6,

E. by N. 1-2

es.

40-29
40-30

38-26
86 11

84-6

10-19
10-48

12-24
14-8

15-54

61
61
63

62
63

64
63

62
62
63

62
63

63
66

63
63
65

62
63

68
72

64
60
61

62
63

64
67

^650
ce..7

70^
20 mil

240 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

Oct. Slst. — A thunder-shower ushered in the day. What little
wind there was would be favourable for us when once outside the
bay. At 9.30 A.M. the ships of the squadron had steam up for six
knots, and at this time there was a splendid rainbow, as a good
omen, arching over the course we should steer out of harbour. A
few minutes before 10 A.M. we weighed and proceeded down the
bay in single column in line ahead, Admiral leading, then Cleopatra,
followed by Bacchante and Garysfort, and so went out at the
southern entrance. When clear of the islands the Admiral formed
columns of divisions in line ahead, the Bacchante leading the port
column, abreast of the Inconstant, at six cables (1,200 yards)
distance. We are steering course south-west for Madeira. The
weather is bright and sunshiny (a fair omen for our coming
cruise). All in the ship feel glad that the Bacchardc now forms
part of a squadron, and are looking forward with cheerful con-
fidence to the drills and other evolutions which we shall now
do in company with other ships, thereby enheartening every soul
on board to do their very best to win and keep the Admiral's
good opinion. After evening service we stopped steaming and
made plain sail (as there is a nice ' royal breeze ' from the north-
west) which done, the hiconstant and Cleopatra at once went ahead.
It was a fine starlight night. Fora Light, Madeira, is distant 558
miles.

Nov. Ist. — A glorious morning with the wind right aft from the
north-east, a bright sun and the sea as blue as a sapphire. During
the morning watch hoisted the screw, which made a considerable
difference in our speed, as we went along eight knots under all
possible sail, stunsails both sides.

** Play with your fancies, and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing ;
Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
To sounds confused ; behold the threadeu sails.
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind.
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowd sea,
Breasting the loftv surge : O, do but think
You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing ;
For so appears this fleet majestical.
Holding due course.*' — Henry V. Act. iii., Prologue.

The Admiral having made the signal to chase south-west, each
ship is doing all she can. The Cleopatra is dropping a bit ; we
passed the Inconstant, who has her screw still down ; the Carysfort
is picking us up; the little C ships are rolling somewhat. We

1880. VIGO TO MADEIRA. 241

thus continued running all the forenoon ; about the dinner hour
the breeze died away, and at 5 p.m. there was a dead calm. This
was (as is so often the ease) merely the precursor of a shift of wind.
The calm lasted till 8 p.m. when the wind sprang up in the opposite
quarter from the south-west and freshened, imtil at midnight it
was blowing pretty stiff ; the morning found us under double-reefed
topsails heading up north-west, and tlie squadron was somewhat
scattered, having had to wear three times during the night.

Nov, 2nd. — At daylight the flagship was about two miles ahead ;
the wind was still freshening but veering round to the north.
After the breakfa.st hour we took in the third reef of fore and main
topsails and close-reefed the mizen topsail. All four ships were
then in sight, tlie two smaller ones hull down, the Carysfort steering
south, the Admiral and ourselves north, and the Cleopatra east. The
Inconstant and Bacchante wore at 9 A.M., and when round we were
laying our proper course. The Admiral made the " general recall "
and * optional down screw " which we lowered at 10 A.M. Though
the thermometer showed 65° we were glad to stand and get warm
in the sun, which was shining brightly the greater part of the
morning. There were several gulls and Mother Carey's chickens,
the latter glossy brown with black tips to their wings, wheeling
astern of the ship. Watching the waves under the action of the
wind, we noticed how on the top of each high one after it had swept
by in its blue majesty all a-wrinkle with the wind and curled over
in foam, a sort of reflex swirl in the face of the wind was gene-
rated, and how this when broken jetted out in spray which flew
off in spindrift and formed a rainbow. It was a sunny afternoon ;
though the wind was still squally and strong, being close-hauled
we only made three and a-half knots ; so at sundown the captain
began steaming to regain station: we were now rolling and knocking
about a bit, and dinner this evening was rather a contrast to that
last night in the dead calm. At sea, four-and-twenty hours often
bring much change, pleasing or otherwise, in the surroundings ;
during the same time life on shore at home would be proceeding
with a monotonous sameness. At half-past ten, having regained
our station, stopped the engines. One roll in the night threw all
the books off their shelves right across the cabin, and tumbled one
of the small field-guns under the poop loose from its moorings
with a fine noise.

Nov. Srd. — During the morning watch shook out the reefs of the
topsails and made sail to starboard stunsails and raised the screw.

VOL. I, R

242 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

A lovely morning, wind nearly right aft. Such weather makes
mere existence a pleasure, there is a crisp feel in the air. A small
blackbird, something like a starling, only with beautiful blue spots
on his plumage, settles exhausted on the rigging. The ships are
sailing against each other under all possible sail, and at noon we
are making nine knots. The Carysfort is leading, but we were
catching her up when the signal was made to " take up appointed
stations for the night " ; we ran along all that night over eight
knots. At 9.30 P.M. the Charyhdis made her number aa she passed
the squadron on her way home from the China station.

Nov. 4ith. — A lovely morning, the wind right aft, stunsails set
both sides. At 8 a.m. we are 260 miles from Madeira ; the weather
is growing warmer and very enjoyable ; every ona seems fresh and
happy and the school and exercises are going on well. In the
evening there was much lightning in the north-east.

Nov. hth. — The Carysfort has dropped astern a good deal during
the night, and the squadron reduced sail to allow her to come up.
The wind is now blowing steady from the north-east, the regular
Trade, and so continued till we reached Madeira. We have our
regular gymnastic drill before breakfast and in the afternoon. To-
day, in the forenoon, as always on Fridays, general quarters, which
consists in running the guns in and out, going through motions of
loading and firing, and laying broadsides, &c. as in action, as well
as getting up shot and shell from the magazines. There is a white
whale following us, turning and rolling in the waves in the wake of
the ship. Three pretty little birds with black spots on white
breasts, something like starlings, settled in the mizen rigging ; they
were quite exhausted and very tame. We chopped up some raw
mutton in thin strips to look like worms, and put it here and
there on the poop ; after eying it wistfully for a short time they
hopped down and devoured it eagerly, and then went off into
the cutter at the davits to sleep and woke an hour or so afterwards
chirping merrily. An old cat we have on board improved the
occasion and came prowling out along the deck ; but the birds had
recovered their strength and made light of her attentions. They
had an opportunity of going on shore in the afternoon, as we
sighted Porto Santo at 4 p.m.

Nov. 6^A.— Sighted Fora Light at 1.30 A.M. At 4.30 A.M. and
again at 5.30 A.M. altered course as necessary to make up for the
anchorage at Funchal on the south side of the island. Saw the
sun rise over the rocky Desertas. What a contrast when we were

1880.

MADEIRA.

243

last here the same month a year ago ! (p. 34). The flagship anchored
at 8 A.M. oflf the Loo Rock and the Cleopatra soon afterwards. The
Carysfort and ourselves were tacking about all the forenoon, as
under the high land of the island the airs were variable and
baffling. Came to in forty-three fathoms just about the dinner
hour, but the Carysfort not till three. H.M.S. Tourmaline (Captain
R. Dennistoun) is anchored close in to the shore, looking much the
same as when we first saw her anchored at Barbados on Christmas
Day 1879 (p. 50). We little thought then how she and ourselves
were destined to sail together round the world with a Flying
Squadron. In the afternoon landed at the steps at the back of
the Loo Rock with three messmates. At the landing place there
is a curious crane which is turned out with long swinging^^chains ;
when the surf is running so high that a boat cannot come along-
side she is by means of these raised aloft and swung ashore. It

MADEI

RA.

Date.

Wind.

Tempebatubb.

1 Sea.

Air.

1 Noon.

A P.M. Noon.

dp.M.

Nov.

7S.

Variable 1-3

N.E. 5 •6 1

Variable 1

' 69

is not required to day, as the water is as smooth as can be. At
the end of the pier we mounted the horses (which we had secured
at ten shillings a day by telegraphing from Vigo to Souza's livery
stables in Rua do Bispo, though the usual hire is 8Z. a month) and
rode through the town of Funchal, which extends for a mile and
a-half along the margin of the Bay ; it« curious narrow streets are
paved with short rough slabs of pumice stone. It is a bright warm
English summer's day, thermometer over 70®, and the lovely purple
flowered Bourgainvilleas which trail over the walls of many gardens
as we pass fill the air with their sweet scent. Each horse is
followed by a man, who keeps up with it by clutching hold of
the tail with one hand, and waves a yak of horsetails with the
other to keep oflf the flies. The men are said to be able to run for
thirty miles thus. We went out to the east of the town past the
flower and fruit market and along the narrow stone-paved road,

R 2

244 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

with walls on either side, that leads on and up with many a fine
view of the bay below to the ** Little Corral." We halted there at
the Terrace on the roadside and looked down at the valleys
that stretch up into the country before us. All the sides of these
valleys are terraced and cultivated with little gardens of sugar-
cane, yams, and sweet potatoes. It was very waim in the sun, and
very cool indeed in the shade of the trees. There seemed a vast
contrast between the two ; which must we should think be trying
for invalids. There are many fine oaks, planes, and eucalyptus
trees, lots of scarlet geraniums, fuchsias and yellow furze all
abloom in the open. Each house stands in its own garden. The
men who run with the horses have developed remarkably strong
haunches from so doing. We came down from the Terrace, mounted
again, and rode on to the Convent of Nossa Senhora do Monte :
went into the church there, the several altars of which appear
rather tawdry, though the artificial flowers in St. Anthony's side
chapel were very pretty. After standing for a short time on the
top of the flight of steps in front of the convent towers we walked
to the basket sleighs just outside and were shot down the hill. Two
people sit in one sleigh, three men run you down, two of whom,
one on either side, hold ropes which are attached to the front
corners of the sleigh, and with these they steer or check its course
as the third man shoves behind. They run you down the road
that goes direct at a very steep incline from the Convent to the
town, paved with little square stones like all the streets, and with
houses on either side. The men stopped for a drink of wine half
way down, but it is brutal stuff. The sensation in coming down
the hill at this high speed is very like that on "a Russian ice-hill";
there is a strong smell of fire produced from the friction of the
wooden runners of the sleigh on the small stone pavement. A
shilling apiece for each man, three shillings for one sleigh from the
Convent to the bottom, is the ample and proper fare. Came off to
the ship in the officers' boat at 6 p.m. Two-thirds at least of the ex-
port trade of the island is British, and spite of the heavy Portuguese
protection dues more than half the imports are also British.

Nov. Sth. — Started at 10.30 am. from the ship (with a party of
thirteen), to ride up to the "Grand Corral." We mounted our
horses at Pontinha, and a little way to the north-west of the town
were joined by Prince Louis of Battenberg, and Caulfield from the
flagship. Captain Dennistoun and Captain Durrant were also to
have joined our party, but they went on ahead and got taken by

1880. MADEIRA. GRAND CORRAL. 245

their guides to the " Midsliipman's Corral," that is, to the east
end of the Grand Corral instead of the west. The ride to this
is shorter, but the view not nearly so good ; the road thither turns
off to the right by the church with a fountain in front of it. We
took three hours to ride up (it is said to bo sixteen miles from
Funchal), spent one hour there, and took three hours coming home.
At first we ride along the usual narrow stone-paved roads between
high walls with vineyards, now bare of grapes, but with autumn
tints on the leaves, which are trained on trellis- work on either
side ; but after a short time the road strikes up the ravines and
mountain passes which deeply furrow the whole island. These,
which are all natural watercourses, are spanned by long stone
bridges, and their red-earthed and fertile sides are carefully
terraced and cultivated. The bright green of the sugar-cane, the
little thatched huts with pointed roofs, and the bamboos, bananas,
and yams, which were growing on these plats, remind us strongly
of the West Indies. The heliotrope, the hydrangea, and the double
scarlet geranium are growing wild everywhere, and forming thick
hedges ; a bulbous lily too, of a faint lilac colour but with no green
leaf, was very plentiful. The road kept mounting and mounting ;
and looking back we had a fine view of the red cliff at the west
end of the island, that runs down sheer into the sea. We then
came to Estreito, with its oaks and firs, and passed a large house oh
the left-hand side, the Quinta Bainbridge, which is situated rather
too high for living in with convenience, though the air is more
invigorating here than lower down. We then pass into a wood of
aged chestnut-trees — the remains of those woods whence Madeira
is said to have derived its name as the land of Materies, or timber —
still mounting towards the right, and up through its slopes, out
on to a grassy plateau, looking over the edge of the '* Grand Corral,
which is a huge valley or chasm in the centre of the island, two
miles long and half a mile broad, shut in by the highest peaks,
which are very precipitous. We stand on the west side of this
and look down upon the valley over the edge of the cliff, which
breaks away sheer 2,000 feet below. The summits of the hills
surrounding this huge hollow, at this height five or six miles acroFS
at least, are all clear cut and jagged. Away to the north rises the
peak Rui vo, the highest on the island (6056 feet) ; the cold air of tho
north-east Trade is pouring over its summit from the north side,
and turning into cloud vapour which floats languidly down towards
us. After scrambling up to the top of the grassy hill, which rises

246 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

on the south or right-hand of the plateau we are on, and from
which there is a wonderful view looking down into the " Corral," we
sat and ate the luncheon we had brought with us, supplementing
it with baskets of fine aud most refreshing apples, which a number
of native peasants, although we had seen no cottages near, came
forth from the wood and produced. After enjoying ourselves here
we came down, striking off the path by which we had mounted,
about half-way back to Funchal, and so got upon the New Road
which led down by the sea, home along which we cantered and
raced each other. The ponies were very good, strong and sleek (they
are fed chiefly on the leaves and stalks of sugar-cane), and carried
us admirably. We got off to the ship at 5.30 P.M. ; both of us
dined with Prince Louis at 7 P.M. on board the Inconstant German
corvette arrived.

Nov. 9th, — Prince of Wales's birthday. After drill at 6 A.M. we
bathed over the ship's side ; the water was very warm. Admiral made
signal " Will sail to-morrow at 9 A.M. for St. Vincent." In the after-
noon landed on the beach in a shore boat into which we got from
the gig which took us in to within 100 yards of the beach; there
was no surf breaking to-day but the beach is very steep to. Walked
into the town to an old woman with lace, where we saw some
pretty netted silk shawls, and then to the consul's (Mr. Hayward),
to the photographer's, to Souza's livery stables, and so through the
town up to the cemetery through the usual Bourgainvillea hedges.
There was a man with a number of very pretty little brown birds
with long black tails for sale in cages, and parrots of all kinds, but
we did not get any, but came off from the Pontinla with the
captain in his galley at 5 P.M. There was a lovely sunset, the colours
crimson, yellow, and green : the water every shade of blue from
silver up to purple : the cold moon overhead and all as calm as
possible. After dinner we had a " Snowdrop Minstrel" entertain-
ment on board, to which about ten officers from each of the other
ships in the squadron came. The men had an extra meat and
pudding supper. The captain received a telegram from the Prince
of Wales at Sandringham thanking him and the officers, and the
ship's company, for the congratulations we liad all sent him by
telegraph this morning. There appears every prospect of a breeze
to-morrow, the air this evening is 10° cooler than it was at noon,
and is already all astir.

Nov, 10th.— At 6.30 a.m. arrived H.M.S. JTumhr. Got away
under sail at 11.10 A.M. but had some difficulty in getting out from

1880.

MADEIRA TO ST. VINCENT.

247

MADEIRA. TO CAPE DE VERDE ISLANDS.

■4

DEIRA

I1.N0V.80.

CANARY II.

C. «•• VERDE II,

Datk.

From Previous Noon.

At Noon.

Tempkrature.

Course.

Distance.

Wind.

Long.

Lat.

Sea.

Air.

Sail. Steam.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon.

a P.M.

Nov,

. ' ... N.W.N.E2-3

S 25 W.

116 I ...

V.E.toE.3-4

30-52 17-60

12 S. 28 W.

165 ' ..

E. 3 -4, S.E. 6 -6

28-27

19-20

13 S. 29 W.

t 1

119 ...

E S.E. 3-4,

S.E. by E. 3-4

E. S.E. 8-4,

26-43

20-26

14S.S. 26W.

l.?0 1 ...

24-47

21-30

N.E. 4-6

S. 26 W.

162 1 ...

N.E.byE.5-6
N.E. 6-6

22-20

S. 23 W

108 ; 162

N.E. 5-6, E. 6

18 61

24-25

800 ' 162

> . , -'

Total distance

_ _

962 miles.

243

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1880.

under the lee of the high land, as had also the TmcnnaliTie and
Cleopatra, the wind coming in puflFs, followed by tantalising calms,
but at last we caught the breeze over the lower land at the east end
of Madeira, and rejoined the Admiral who was waiting for us to the
southward ; picked up the trade wind and ultimately in the first
watch went along over seven knots. Lost sight of Madeira in rain
and mist.

Nov. 12th. — Admiral made signal to chase at 8 A.M. The peak
of Teneriffe is said to be visible to the south-east, but though
turned out at sunrise at 6.30 A.M. could not see it ; there were only
a few clouds on the horizon in that direction. We are running
along all the morning and forenoon at eight knots. Mr. Ruskin

IN TH£ hORTU-EAST TRADES.

once said that, " take it all in all, a ship of the line is the most
honourable thing that man as a gregarious animal has ever pro-
duced," and certainly the sight of England's oaken and iron
walls combined tearing through the black water fills one with a
sense of strength and joy such as nothing else can give. At noon
the Admiral hoists the dinner pennant in order to set the time
for the squadron : off the deck of the Bacchante the flagship appears
leading the weather line with the Tourmaline and Cleopatra sailing
after her : the Carysfort is sailing astern of us, but often runs
close up alongside. The Inconstant is sailing right away from the
other ships, the Tourmaline is beating us, the Cleopatra is dropping

1880. MADEIRA TO ST. VINCENT. 249

astern (she has 100 tons more dead-weight in her than the Carys-
fort). At 1.30 P.M. flagship hove to for a funeral ; and all the ships
hoisted their ensigns half-mast high. At 4 p.m. the wind died
away until it was nearly a calm, but freshened up again as befoie
to a steady Trade. At noon we are 760 miles from St. Vincent.
We carried away the port foretopmast stunsail boom, wringiDg the
boom iron in so doing : this is the third that has gone since leaving
England. The fore yard had to be lowered and the iron heated
and straightened : this took about three hours. The BaccharUe was
"guide of the fleet" in the meantime.

Hov. IZth. — Chasing all day again and running a steady six
knots the whole of the twenty-four hours. The flagship, however,
remained under small sail waiting for the Cleopatra. Pleasant
shade all over the ship from the sails, the sun being directly
forward. Lots of flying-fish about, and a regular Trade sky flecked
with clouds. At sundown the Admiral made to us '* Keep on my
port bow not less than two cables, and keep within signal dis-
tance," so that practic9.11y the formation for the night was in the
shape of a St. Andrew's cross, the flagship being in the centre, the
Tourmaline' Bkud Cleopatra at the starboard ends of the arms, and
the Bacchante and Carysfort at the port ends.

Nov. \Uh. — At 5.30 A.M. the moon set ; as she went down her light
appeared almost red, and was quite trying for the eyes to gaze at.
This morning the Admiral put us into whites, and made a signal
about the ventilation of the ship, so we got more windsails up,
as the main-deck ports were generally closed at sea. The windsail
is a funnel made of canvas ; the upper part is suspended from the
rigging, the cap with its large ears is set to face the quarter from
which the breeze may be coming, and by this means a current of
cool air is introduced down below. Had the usual morning service
between decks, and at 10 p.m. passed into the tropics (23°27'
north), rolling along with the wind right aft, seven knots.

Nov. 15^A. — In the afternoon Admiral made signal to Bacchanic
" Prepare for full speed trial to-morrow," so after evening quarters
down screw, which caused us to drop astern of the other ships a
bit, although we still went over seven knots.

Nov. \&th, — At 3 A.M. commenced steaming, having furled sails.
The twelve-hour trial commenced at 4 A.M. ; we soon caught up
and passed the squadron, and lost sight of them at 7.30 A.M. as we
were now going fourteen knots, and they were only sailing a little
over seven ; we kept this average up till 12.30, and then the bearings

250

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE,

1880.

got heated and we had to ease down to thirteen, to twelve, to ten,
and eleven knots (cp. p. 193). As to the flying-fish not flying, we
distinctly watched one this morning when out of the water, and
therefore quite white in the sun, who, after sailing down a long roll
of wave, flapped his wings, altered his course, and wriggled the whole
of his body. At 6.15 p.m. observed land on the starboard bow, and
at 9 P.M. sighted San Antonio, the most northerly and largest of
the Cape de Verde group, and steamed along its coast ; sighted St.
Vincent at half-past ten, came in and anchored at 11.30 P.M., passing
the strange Bird rock on our port hand, which in the moonlight
looked like a huge ship under sail. Found German sloop here.

AT ST. VINCENT.

Date. ,

WlKD.

Teupbraturb.

Se*.

Air

1
Nov.

Noon. 1 0 p.M

Noon. 1

S P.M.

i ' 1

N.E. 2-4 1 75

18 1

N.E 4-3 76

' 77

N.E. 2-3 76

Nov. nth. — At 6 A.M. shifted berth. The Incoiistaivt came in
under sail at 9.30 A.M., and the Carysfort under sail soon afterwards.
She came in to the northward of Bird Island, and when proceeding
to take up her berth, passed somewhat close to the BacchantCy her
wicked-looking snout popping up and down within a few feet of
our port side for a few minutes. The Tounnaline came in at
2.20 P.M. We are coaling all day, and take in over 300 tons in
the twelve hours ; it is brought off in large iron lighters that are
towed out by a steam-tug. From where we lie at anchor we can
distinctly see how the outline of the volcanic hills on the south-
west side of the anchorage represent vividly and unmistakably the
outline of Washington's face ; and turning round can see another
large profile on the east side with a long straight nose and mouth
wide open star-gazing. These islands belong to the Portuguese.

Nov. I8th. — Landed in the afternoon to see the cricket match,
the Squadron v. the St. Vincent Club. This last consists chiefly
of the sixteen telegraph clerks, who are constantly employed at
this centre of ocean cables. The Bacchante sent four as her share of

1880. ST. VINCENT, CAPE DE VERDE ISLANDS. 251

the winning team. Squadron, first innings 76; second innings 156.

St. Vincent Club, first innings 53; second innings 30 and seven

wickets to fall. The cricket is here played on a sandy plain, with

a strip of cocoa-nut matting pegged down between the wickets ; it

plays pretty true. There is not a blade of grass on the island ; a

few retama*like shrubs and a tough sort of green-leaved thing, by

the side of what appears a dry watercourse, are all the verdure that

is visible. In the town, which is clean and well paved, there are

however a few palm-trees on the Praca, which are watered every

morning. The town they call Mindello, and there are two streets

called, the Rua do Duoro, and the Rua do Minho, although there

is not a drop of water to be seen in them. Walked away to look

at the three cemeteries, each of which is surrounded with white

walls, but of course there is not an atom of green anywhere ; all is

dry, red, sandy, rocky and hot. The pleasantest walk is one which

goes along the sea shore on the south side of the bay, where there

is a fine sandy beach, covered with shells ; after passing the obelisk,

you get a good view of the opposite island of San Antonio ; the

strait that runs between that island and St. Vincent is always

obscured by the mist whi(;h is generated by the trade wind blowing

through it. This hangs there as a veil of cloud, over the summit of

which the hills (between 6,000 and 7,000 feet high) of the island

beyond are generally protruding. It is this moisture which clothes

their sides with herbage, whose varying tints of green present a

striking contrast to the dusky and arid brown of St. Vincent.

Coming back into the town, went to the Temperance Restaurant,

good, clean, and snug, first established by Corry Brothers, but now

entirely self-supporting, and chiefly patronised by merchant skippers.

Scarcely a day passes without one or more steamers calling at

St. Vincent. Every atom of wood in the construction of the houses

has to be brought from America. There are three large coal-yards

and jetties, and quite a small fleet of colliers lying in the bay. The

contrivance for carrying coal from the yard where it is stowed to the

shipping wharves, a distance of half a mile, is very conspicuous.

A row of tall posts like those used for telegraph wires are placed

about four yards apart, and support on small iron rollers a long

endless wire, to which are hung at intervals large metal buckets

containing the coaL There is an incline from the depot to the

wharf, and consequently as the full buckets travel down to the

lower end of the circuit, (where they are canted so as to discharge

their contents into the lighters,) the empty buckets pass up the

252 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

incline back to the coal-yaxd. There are very few whites resident
in the island, the manual labour is chiefly done by negroes (the
temperature was about 80° at noon to-day), whom we also met,
some careering on donkeys over the plain and carrying sheep under
their arms; and others hauling and shoving black bullocks, who
were said to be on their way to a land of Goshen on the south
side of the island ; if it exists it must be very small, for water is
very scarce, and we saw nothing like a stream anywhere. There
were a lot of grasshoppers about, and some dry grass with small
seeds on which the quail live, of which Smythe went out and
shot three.

We went into the curio shop, where the curios are the same as
you get at Madeira only dearer — basket-chairs, wood boxes, &c.,
and mats from the African coast. There were, however, a number
of pretty little birds, some very small green and red parrots, and
some little tomtit-like creatures with blue breasts, said to be
Benguelo birds. Coming off to the ship noticed shoals of fish in
the bay.

Nov. 10th, — Manned and armed boats. Arrived from England
the Pacific mail steamer Neva, with our mails, and many parcels
"not to be opened till Christmas." A shower of rain fell in the
forenoon: this is said to be a curiosity here. In the afternoon
a torpedo was fired from the end of the lower boom in the water,
when numbers of fish were killed and taken on board. After-
wards the steam pinnace went away and fired a hand-charge of
gun-cotton in amongst another shoal ; many fish were stunned and
floated about on the top of the water ; the bluejackets in various
boats of the squadron that happened to be about rushed to the
spot and hauled them in by handfuls over the gunwale, for they
were quickly recovering themselves from the shock and swimming
away. Some came up and swam for a time with their heads down
and their tails up in a most curious manner. Squadron having
completed coaling prepared for sea.

Nov. 20th. — Weighed under sail in succession; first at 7.30 A.M.
the Tourvialine and Carysfort, then Cleopatra and flagship, and
lastly Bacchante at 9 A.M., and then got up the screw. There was
a light breeze from the north-east. Just as we started H.M.S.
Wye arrived from the southward. The lower part of San Antonio
was enveloped in mist and clouds as usual, but upon what we could
see of its sides there seemed to be a considerable amount of
green. We unfortunately got under the south side of the island.

1880. CAPE DE VERDE ISLANDS TO THE PLATE. 253

and so lost the wind which was blowing on the opposite side
of the Channel and nearer in to San Antonio; after a bit we
managed to work back into it, and then formed columns of
divisions in line ahead, open order. We hove to at 7.30 p.m., for
the flagship and Tourmaline had let go lifebuoys and lowered boats
for a man overboard, who was picked up all right. Monte Video
3,494 miles distant.

Nov, 2\st. — Fine Trade, all the ships bowling along and sailing at
large, the Carysfort passed us to windward after momiog service.
In the evening shortened sail for the rest to come up. The next
day we went along in the same way, and made 150 miles by noon ;
but the sky was now obscured with ciouds, and there was a damp,
close feeling in the air (thermometer 77°) ; at midnight we went to
night quarters. On Tuesday proceeding as before, with this variety
in drill, that in the afternoon we mids were exercised at sail drill
aloft on the mizen mast. Towards dusk there fell some very heavy
tropical showers, after which the wind headed us, and there were
squalls from east to south-east; again at midnight we went to night
quarters, and this time fired electric broadsides, &c. On Wednesday
(24th) took up our appointed stations, and after sailing along four
and six knots all the forenoon, came into regular doldrum weather
after evening quarters, breeze all gone, heavy rain, which lasted con-
tinuously with squalls all night ; just before sundown we obsen^ed
a waterspout, and on the following day we had the last of our sailing
on this side of the line, and made only between seven and eight
miles during the whole of the twenty-four hours, although the
current bore us more. On Friday (Nov. 26th), before daylight,
the Admiral made signal to " Get up steam, the InconMant will
tow the Carysfort and the £acc?uinte will tow the Tourmaliney
At sunrise the temperature is 80°. Although we are now, this
morning, 300 miles away from any land, yet, looking out at dawn
on the grey glassy ocean eastward, the delusion is strong that
land is near — ^just in the same way as in the desert men are
affected by the mirage of water. At 9.20 A.M. we furled sails
and proceeded, under steam, close up alongside the Tourmaline \
she gave us a four and a-half inch steel wii-e hawser, which
we made fast to our port towing bollard, and proceeded with
her in tow at 10.45 A.M. In the meantime the Inconstant had
taken the Carysfort in tow. The sunset this evening was quite
different to any other we have seen elsewhere. The weather had
been showery and squally, and all round the horizon were resting

254

CRUISE OF H,M.S. BACCHANTE.

1880.

cool, grey, silvery clouds, like a veil, an eflFect we have often
seen in pictures of the Arctic regions. Above and behind this
there was a golden and bronze-coloured glow and strips of light-
green sky, and this was not only all round the horizon, but also
extended all up and across the whole vault of heaven from one
end to the other ; there was no diflference in the east or west, in

ST. VINCENT (CAPE DE VERDE ISLANDS) TO MONTE VIDEO.

the north or south, but all was one beautiful canopy of most
delicate tints, in which there was nothing gaudy, and no colour
was pre-eminent but all were harmonised together. Some of the
cloud-forms were rounded, and some were streaky, some were
behind others that lay close in the foreground. The sea was dark
blue, slightly rippled and heaving with the faintest swell, but there

1880.

CAPE DE VEBDE ISLANDS TO THE PLATE.

255

ST. VINCENT (CAPE DE VERDE ISLANDS) TO MONTE-VIDEO.

From Pkevious Noon.

At Noon.

rEJfPEBATUEE,

Date.

Distance.

Wind.

• Lat.

Long.

Sea.

Air.

Course.

Sail. Steam.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon. 6 P.M.

Nov.

N.E. byE. 1-2
S.E. 2, N.E 8-4

16-49

25-8

21S.

S. 6*W.

...

15-26

25-18

S. 8W.

151

...

E. by S. 4-6,
N.E. 7-8

12-55

25-26

S. 8W.

164

...

E.N.E. 8 -7 -5

1011

25-36

S. 8-30 W.

123

EN.E.4-5,S.S.E.
7.4, E. by 8. 3-5

8-9

25-54

S. 8-80 W.

N.W.8-4,N.E.by
E. 4-6, E S.E. 4-5

6-44

26-7

S. 18 W.

S.E. 5-7,
Variable 1

5-34

26-24

1 27

S. 8-80 W.

121

S.E. 3-4

8-35

26-6

! 28S.

S. 7 W.

Z 1 101

S.E. by S. 4-5

1-55

26-22

1 29

S. 25 W. ... , 119

S.E. by S. 5

0-8
S.
1-48

27-13

80
Die.

S. 80 W.

104

S.E. by S. 5

28-12

S. 28 W.

185

...

S.E. 3-4, S.E. by

E. 5

S.E. 4-5

3-47

29 15

S. 27 W.

129

5-41

30-14

S. 26 W.

122

S.E. 4-8

7-82

31-18

S. 25 W.

156

S.E. 3-4

9-52

32 16

5S.

S. 25 W.

145

S.E. by E. 3-4

12-3

33-20

S. 24 W.

114

S.E.8-2,
S.E.JS. 4-6, E.

18-46

84-9

S. 26 W.

182

N.E.3-5,E.byN.4

15*44

35-9

S. 24 W.

118

E. by S. 3-4

17-31

36-0

S. 19 W.

133

E. by S. 3-4,
E.N.E. 3-4

19-37

36-46

S. 18 W.

157

E.N.E. 4,

N.N.E. 8"4

22-6

87-39

S. 16 W.

140

N.N.E.toN8-4-6

24 15

38-22

12S.

S. 87 W.

N.N.W. 2-1

24-55

88-54

S. 40 W.

N.AV. 1, N.E. 1,
N. 2-8

25-56

39-51

S. 36 W.

181

N. 2-3, N.E. 3-4

27-42

41 18

S. 88 W.

151

N.N.W. 4-5

29-40

43-6

S. 54 W.

124

N.W. 3-2, S.E. 4

30-52

4.^-3

S. 54 W.

138

N.E. 3-6, N.E.

5 6, W. by S. 7-5

&. 3-4, S.E. 8

32-12

47-14

S. 49 W.

103

38-20

48-46

19S.

S. 57 W.

182

N.E. 2-5, N. &

N.W. 6-4

34-32

50-59

S. 82 W.

N. to N.E. 1-4, E.
to S.E. by E. 2 -3

84-41

52-28

S. 80 W.

103

S.E 3, E N.E. 3,

34-59

54-20

N. to E. N.E. 1-2

66
3258

452

N.E. 4 to 2

...

Tota

distance ...

... 8;

'10 mi

les.

25G

CRUISE OF H.M.S, BACCHANTE.

IStiO.

were no waves, and no wind. This reminded us of the painting
named Empire of the Sea, in the Royal Academy of 1879.

The next two days we were steaming persistently along, aver-
aging about five knots, with fore and aft sail set occasionally;
the breeze was fitful — genei-ally coming up from the south-east —
we were just on the limit of the South-east trade which is trying
to work up from the other side of the line.

Nov. 2dth.—The Trade is now coming up refreshingly from the
South-east and we are steering south-west. After divisions Neptune
hailed the ship, and came on board the portside : we crossed the line
at 10 A.M., so he and Amphitrite stayed with us till the dinner hour,
during which time the ship's company were employed in making his

CROSSING THE UNE.

acquaintance. A bluejacket, named Goodfellow (captain of the
quarter-deck), made a sturdy, thickset, and hairy King of the Sea
and acted the part uncommonly well. He and his shy little
" Amphitritty " (Barton, boatswain's yeoman) came aft with their
attendants, where they were met by the captain and those of the
officers who had crossed before, and received from them tribute in
the shape of sardines, pots of jam, pipes, pickles, and *cake for the
beai-s to eat.' Then the two took their seats side by side on an
extemporised throne over the engine-room hatchway. Meanwhile
the lower stunsail had been rigged up in the starboard gangway
so as to form a large tank, which had been filled with sea-water

Id80. CROSSING THE LINE. 257

The contents were constantly renewed so as to keep the depth of
water about five feet. At the after end of the tank a platform
of gratings about six feet high above the deck, and on a level
with the hammock nettings, and with a ladder up to it, had
been erected, and on this stood "the shavers," under the firat
lieutenant's superintendence. Doctor Gideon Delemege was the
only one of the ward-room to be shaved, but all the gun-room
(except Murray and Moore) and about 230 of the crew were
operated on. These were all sent between decks and brought up
one by one blindfolded, and presented to His Majesty with a few
words from the senior member of their mess, descriptive of the
character they each bore in the ship. Neptune then, after ex-
changing a few observations with his new acquaintance, gave
directions as to which of the four various sized razors was to be
employed. They passed on and mounting the ladder sat down in
a chair on the platform for the operation. " Tbe barber " was ac-
companied by " the doctor with pills" in readiness, and his attendant
with " smelling salts," in case any one should require his assistance,
which was given quite gratuitously and freely proffered to all. This
was all over in half a minute, when they found themselves covered
with soapsuds, tipped over backwards off the platform into the water
in the sail, through which tbey were passed by the six '' bears " (all
first class petty officers), getting more or less ducked on their
passage out. Everything went off with the utmost good humour,
and it was most refreshing having the steam hose played over us
as the temperature, both of the air and water, was 78*. We all
had great fun in slushing and squirting each other with these,
turning a hose now on one officer or man, and now on another, as
we ran about, in more or less light attire, all over the deck and
climbed up in the rigging. There was ducking in all its forms and
under every modification of splashing and immersion : there was
the duck courteous, the duck oblique, the duck direct, the duck up-
right, the duck downright, the shower duck, and the duck and
drake. The gambols and sky-larking were concluded by noon and
the usual ship routine resumed.

Nov. SOth, — Stopped steaming, and cast off the Tourmaline at
8 A.M., having towed her for 93^ hours, and a distance of 452 miles.
Then made plain sail as the south-east trade was blowing steadily
with clear sunshine. At 11.30 A.M., William Foster, A.B., fell
from the fore-topsail yard on to the starboard side of the forecastle.
He died almost instantly and was buried at sunset after evening

VOL. I. s

255 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

quarters the same day. He was a smart young seaman, and came
from Blandford in Dorsetshire. A sailor's funeral at sea is almost
more impressive than a soldier's ashore. He who has gone from
their midst is always well known to every one in the ship
— where men are brought into such intimate contact every hour
of the day and night, that they soon learn, even more readily
than men in a regiment, each one the other's character and habits.
When, therefore, on board a man-of-war, amid every token of
respect, and with the white ensign half-mast high, the body of
their comrade, beneath the folds of the Union Jack, is carried by
his former messmates up from the after hatchway, down along the
quarter-deck to the gangway through the guard of marines with
their arms reversed, and followed by the captain and every officer
of the ship uncovered, there is not any of all the ship's com-
pany, then " conscious the more of One ne'er seen, yet ever near,"
as they stand by bareheaded, upon whose ears the words of the burial
service fall, who can remain untouched : " In the midst of life we
are in death : of whom may we seek for succour, but of Thee, O

Lord Thou knowest the secrets of our hearts ; shut not Thy

merciful ears to our prayer, but spare us, Lord most holy, O God
most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, Thou most worthy
Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, to fall from Thee."

The sea, to which the little cluster of his chums and messmates
gathered round the gangway then committed his body, was
that evening of the darkest purple blue, and over the whole height
of heaven were spread at that moment bright and deep coloured
clouds, some angry and lowering, others of a delicate emerald and
olive green, and others again saffron and golden.

" 0 mother, praying Ood will save

Thy sailor, — while thy head is bow'd,
His heav^-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wand' ring grave.'*

Then, the service being over, the marines fired three farewell
volleys in the air, in token that he had in the exercise of his daily
duties, just as much as if he had died amid the strife of war, fallen in
the service of his Queen and of his country. The ship then stood
on her course, and sailed steadily on all through the starlit night

Dec. Ut. — This morning, as accidents never come singly, a man
fell from aloft overboard from the flagship ; she let go a lifebuoy,
hove to, and lowered a boat, but he was not found. At noon all
the officers of the Bacchante met in the ward-room and drank the

1880. CAPE DE VERDE ISLANDS TO THE PLATE. 259

Princess of Wales's health most heartily, wishing Her Royal Highness
many happy returns of the day. The Cleopatra has been keeping
her course south-west, and all the other ships have been beating
to windwai'd, tacking nearly every hour as exercise for the watch,
until the afternoon when the Admiral made signal to " Chase
the Cleopatra," and we came up with her at sunset and took up our
stations for the night.

The next two days the same routine was followed. The
BaccharUe, as her bottom was getting very foul, was the worst of
the four others in sailing after the Cleopatra, which was the
" dummy-ship " of the squadron. We passed many nautilus on the
surface of the sea with their pink little sails spread to the wind.
At night there are large patches of phosphorescence on the water,
which are said to be in some way connected with these. These
days at sea, during a long cruise, with their quiet and regularity,
are most useful for study. Besides the usual school we have
been reading together during the last few weeks Si^uiers s Feru, and
also Prescott's History of the Incas, and looking at some of the
large tables in Herbert Spencer's Sociology. We have the usual
gymnastic exercises, varied with games of quoits on one side of
the quarter-deck, during the men's supper hour, while on the other
side some practise cricket with a net rigged up in the starboard
gangway. This amusement after a bit rather drew upon the club
funds on account of the number of balls lost overboard. On other
evenings " prisoner's base " enlivened the hour, when the junior
o£Scers, rushing and bounding all over the hatchways and deck,
somewhat interfered with the staid and leisurely " constitutionals "
of their elders. We are now enjoying a succession of starlight
nights; Sirius is very bright; Jupiter and his moons, all four
distinctly visible, and Magellan's clouds and other star-depths and
nebulse are often examined through the captain's telescope on the
poop. Our copies of Proctor's and Guillemin's books on the stars
are just now much in requisition.

Dec. 6th. — A man fell overboard from the Carysfort, but was
picked up; in the afternoon there was a funeral on board the
Tourmaline. We are about the latitude of Cuzco to-day, and
a little south of Bahia, which, instead of calling in at, as was origin-
ally intended, we are passing, on account of yellow fever now
prevalent there. We met a line American clipper coming up from
the south under a heap of fancy sail, and running before the south-
east trade. She asked us for the latest news from Europe, and

s 2

2.60 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

we sigQalled to her "Garfield elected President." She passes
onward up towards the States ; the faintest of the trade winds are
urging her still forward, and we are reminded, as we look at her,
that the source of the Gulf Stream lies in the impulse given by
these same trade winds as they blow up from the south-east along
the coast of Africa, and continually urge along north-westwards
the superficial layer of that portion of the Atlantic, and create thus
what is. known as the equatorial current, which sets constantly
from the coast of Africa towards the West Indies. It is, however,
a shallow current, and does not extend more than fifty fathoms in
depth ; on the surface it runs at the rate of eighteen miles a day.
The western portion of that current enters the Caribbean Sea and
the Gulf of Mexico ; flows round that at the rate of sixty miles a
day, becoming warmed as it goes, and then coming out by the
narrow straits between Florida and the Bahamas, meets the rest
of the equatorial current that runs up outside the Antilles ; the two
united then flow across the North Atlantic, at the rat« of forty-eight
miles a day, away from America towards Great Britain. Thus if
we drifted with the current we should arrive at her skipper s home
first and then at ours. The depth of the Gulf Stream, where it is
pressed out by the cold current flowing south close to the North
American coast, is about one hundred fathoms ; when it is relieved
fit)m that pressure it thins out and expands and part turns south
by the Azores back again to Africa. Regarding the circulation of
the waters of the ocean, we must remember that the upper water
of the equatorial regions being warmer and lighter than the colder
water round the polar regions, always tends to flow away towards
the pole ; and that the cold polar water sinks down and flows slowly
along the bottom towards the Equator, where, when gradually
warmed it rises to the surface and flows back again whence it came.
Both currents, however, are deflected from their due north and
south course by the eastward rotation of the earth. The warm
upper current, travelling with equatorial speed, outstrips the slower
movement of the earth in higher latitudes, and washes the western
shores of Europe with the tepid waters that make our climate so
mild ; while the polar under-current, on the contrary, outstripped
in its turn by the earth's motion, turns westward towai-ds the
American coast, and, pressed inwards by the antagonistic warm flow,
becomes the narrow band of excessively cold water which is found
between the edge of the Gulf Stream and the shore of the United
States. The cold water is thus beaten by the warm in the northern

1880. OCEAN AND AIR CURRENTS. 261

hemisphere, because the Polar Sea is nearly inclosed by land. Its
detfp water finds only a narrow exit in a channel between Iceland
and Greenland, and forms a narrow current in the West Atlantic.
In the southern hemisphere the reverse takes place. The Antarctic
Ocean is perfectly open : its cold waters flow freely along the bottom ;
and the consequence is, that there is a great mass of cold water
beneath the 'whoU of the warm surfstce current, which sensibly re-
duces its temperature. At the Equator thLs cold water is brought to
the surface, by the fact that at this point it encounters the Arctic
flow in the opposite direction, and the two streams meeting one
another rise up in a heap towards the top, where, under the rays of
the tropical sun, they get converted into warm upper-currents, and
set oflf once more on their northward and southward travels. That
is the theory, and it has been singularly borne out in every point
by the soundincrs of the Challenger} The Porcupine expedition of
1869 and 1870 also showed that there is this constant movement
away from the Equator of the warm surface layers, surely tending
to ameliorate the climate of the polar areas ; while the cool water,
as heavier, has sunk to the bottom and moves in towards the Equator
in many streams at an ever-increasing depth as it gets nearer and
nearer the Equator, where at 2,306<-fathoms its temperature is 33^^
The vertical circulation of the ocean is therefore produced by
temperature, the horizontal circulation is produced by wind. And
while all horizontal oceanic circulations (or currents from east to
west and west to east) depend upon surface agencies and are liable
to be modified or completely altered by changes in the contour of
the land, and may therefore have been entirely different in suc-
cessive geological periods, the vertical oceanic circulation (or currents
from north to south and south to north) would depend only on the
contrast of temperature between the polar and equatorial areas, and
must have continued through all geological time, provided only that
a communication existed between the great ocean basins of the two
areas.

And as it is with the water, so is it with the air. The warmer air of
the equatorial regions being lightest, rises, and its place is supplied

* Dr. Carpenter has verified this law by experiment, so far as action on a large scale
is capable of being verified on a very small one. He takes a glass trough, fills it with
water and places a freezing mixture on the surface at one end to represent the pole,
and a hot plate at the other to stand for the equator. The circulation is immediately
set up in proi^er form, and a diagram in which cold water is coloureii blue, find waim
water red, shows how steadily the blue stream sinks down, travels along the bottom,
and rises again to the surface, to be there transmuted into red, and so reaches the
point from which it started.

262 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880-

by the in-nisli of the heavier and colder air from the polar regions ;
these currents form the " trades ; " which are deflected just in the
same way by the rotation of the earth as the ocean currents are, so
as to be north-east in the northern hemisphere and south-east in the
southern. They are also interfered with by the action of the land,
or else would be uniform over each hemisphere. If the solid crust
of the earth be conceived as smoothed down to one uniform level,
its entire surface would then be covered with water to the depth of
about a mile ; and then the action of winds and waters would not
be disturbed in the even tenor of their flow and action (as they
are now) by the land, and the local variations in temperature
consequent thereon. Thus the air above and the sea below move
ever in rhythmic currents round the globe, like the throbs and
pulsatiomi of blood sent out and drawn in by the never-resting
heart of the universe. Of this we are constantly reminded, when
sailing in the trades, as we look upward and seethe clouds scudding
along on high, borne by the warm counter-trade in a diametrically
opposite direction to that of the cool trade that is rushing in
towards the Equator and bearing us along. Then the action of
these great nature-powers seems to us like that of the great angels
and wheels in the vision of Ezekiel (i. 20-24), " Quocumque ibat
spiritus, illuc eunte spiritu, et rotae pariter elevabantur, sequentes
eum. Spiritus enim vitae erat in rotis. Et audiebam sonum alarum,
quasi sonum aquarum multarum, quasi sonum sublimis Dei : cum
ambularent quasi sonus erat multitudinis, ut sonus castrorum."

Dec. 7th, — The Admiral got up steam for target practice, for which
the other four ships spread, but, as the Bacchante had already " ex-
pended her quarter's ammunition," we continued under sail. In the
evening they were all hull down, and the Inconstant flashed to the
Bacchante by means of her electric light, the long and short flashes
of which we read off as they were reflected on the clouds above,
though the actual light itself was below the horizon. We were also
experimenting with the captain's private electric light, which he
worked by steam from the steam pinnace. The following morning
the Inconstant and the other three ships spread again for target
practice, and in the afternoon were at steam tactics. We hove to
for them to come up with us, which they did at 5 P.M. While we
were waiting for them we hooked a shark over the stem with a bit
of salt pork. Before he was hauled out of the water the commander
put several express bullets into his head, but in spite of these, and
even after he had been ripped open under the forecastle, he struggled

1880. CAPE DE VERDE ISLANDS TO THE PLATE, 263

on, such was his wonderful vitality ; several sucker-fish were taken
off him. We passed out of the tropics on Saturday, December
11th, and, thenceforth, had variable winds from all points of the
compass which sometimes fell very light. This was especially the
case on Sunday (12th), when the squadron was becalmed for
thirty-six hours, and the ships lay with their heads all different
ways. As the thermometer was nearly 80'' we had some of the
awnings spread, but service was still held down below on the
mess-deck, with ports barred in. The captain's bunting bag
was overboard, in which he managed to secure some pretty
hanls of water creatures; a number of small, long, almost in-
visible, jelly-fish, with two dots for their eyes and a line for the
spine (these are said by some to be the cause of the phosphor-
escence on the water at night) ; an infant Portuguese man-of-war ;
a few blue, flea-like creatures, and a lovely shot-green and rose
insect which, under the microscope, had many admirers. On
Tuesday we had a splendid breeze from the north and north-west,
which carried us along over seven or eight knots for twenty-four
hours, so at noon we had run 150 miles. The wind worked round
by the west to the south-east, a confused sea coming up with it
from that quarter; on the following day it was very dark on the
south-west horizon, and expecting squalls from that quarter
the Admiral made signal to shorten sail, and down came the rain.
Soon after the change of wind the sky was clear, and the
thermometer fell as much as seven degrees in half an hour, and
the air was dry. On Thursday morning we began to feel quite
cool, some said even cold, with the thermometer at TO"*, and
on Friday the Admiral put us into blues again, and as the
barometer was falling, at 1.30 p.m. two reefs were taken in in the
topsails, the wind blowing from the north with a force from seven
to eight, with frequent rain squalls. A dead shark, twenty-one
feet long, covered with seabirds, floated by ; our patent log last
night was swallowed by one, for the rope was frayed where he had
bitten it through. The paymaster wondered whether he had got
"log "-jaw in consequence. Numbers of sea-birds flying about
again. One very pretty little yellow land bird, like a dark canary,
came off and flew astern for some time. We are close hauled
to what seems a " turbanado " or sort of local " pampero." At
10.30 P.M. the signal was made to "Wear and come to the wind on
the other tack." It was a beautiful moonlight night for this evolu-
tion ; the Bacchante wore first as leader of a column, the Iruonstant,

264 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1880.

being of very great length, and having her screw down, wore slowly.
In the middle of this evolution one of the ships asked us " What is
the matter?" not having taken the signal in, but she quickly
followed motions. Then as the wind had abated and there wsuj
no " pampero " we made plain sail ; the wind then went round to
the south-east; and the weather was dry and fine with the
barometer rising.

Dec, 18/A. — During the forenoon several turtle floated by the
fchip. Passed through myriads of young Portuguese men-of-war,
several of whom were taken in the bunting net. In many places
the sea was discoloured with yellow, muddy streaks, three or four
feet long and broad, but of irregular shape ; the sun was shining
brightly at the time, and the rest of the sea was deep blue ; we
passed within a few yards of them, and they are apparently either
masses of fish spawn or seaweed nucleus. The thermometer now
never rises above 70"*, and is sometimes two or three degrees lower,
so that it is delightfully cool. The next day we altered course to
west-south-west, and we feel as if we are getting near the mouth
of the Plate river. On Monday morning we get into bottle-green
water, and take soundings with Sir William Thomson's machine
several times at forty -three fathoms, fine black sand ; so vast is the
amount of mud swept down by this river right across South
America from the very Andes themselves. There is a nice gentle
breeze from the north-east, and we are going quietly in at four knots,
keeping station, and in the evening are hailed by a pilot boat. It
is a fine night, and we had a look at Jupiter and Saturn through
the large telescope ; both planets are now very near each other.
The " Southern Cross " is standing topsy-turvy ; and the " False
Cross " looks almost the finer of the two groups.

Dec, 2\st, — At 5 A.M. sighted the long low line of the coast of
Uruguay just before sunrise. At 8 A.M. we were 107 miles from
Monte Video and forty from Maldonado ; it is nearly calm, and
all the forenoon we scarcely make one knot an hour ; we observe
two or three steamers coming out of the river. The wind freshened
from the east in the afternoon, and took us along towards the
anchorage at six and seven knots. At 5 p.m. we passed the bare-
looking, uninviting mass of rock situated just otf Maldonado Point,
called Lobos or Lupus, Island, from the number of sea-wolves or
seals which here abound, several of whom were sunning them-
selves on the reef as we passed. In these regions it is about the
last week in November or the first in December that the sea-lions

1880.

CAPE DE VERDE ISLANDS TO THE PLATE.

265

{Otaria jiibata) haul up on the rocks to bring forth their young.
The breeding places or " rookeries" which they select are always
small, low-lying rocky islets like these, which are exposed to the
swell of the ocean and over which in heavy weather the sea makes
a more or less clean sweep. Mail steamer in our rear coming in
signalled " Have mails for fleet." At 10.30 P.M. sighted the Flores
Light ; after the moon was up the Admiral made signal for change
of formation to single column in line ahead, and so we proceeded till
1 A.M., when we formed columns of divisions in line ahead, second
division to starboard, and so on up to our anchorage at Monte Video,
where we arrived and moored at 4.30 a.m. in four and a half
fathoms. After seeing the sun rise turned in for a short snooze.

AT MONTE VIDEO.

Date.

Wind.

Tempkraturk.

Sea.

Air.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.

6P.U.

Dec

S.E. byS. 1-2, N.E. 1, S.W. 56

S. toS.S.W. 57-2

S.W. 1-2, N.W. 5-6, W.S.W. 5

26 S.

S.W. 2-3, N.E. 3-4, N.W. 4 5

N.W. 8-4, NE. 6-6, W. by N. 2-3

S. 7, ».E. 4-6, N.N.W. 5 "8

W. 1% N. 8-5, W. by N. 8-4

N.W. 2-8, S.E. 4 -6 -3 .

S.K 8"4, N. 4-5, S.E. 12

Jan.

RN.E. 8

2S.

N. 5-7, N.E. 8-1

S.W. 1, S.E. 8-6

S.E. 6 -5 -3

S. and S.E. 4'5

S.E. 8-4, S. 4-7-4

8. 2-8, N.E. to E. 2-3

N.E. 8-4, S.W. 1-2, E. 2

Dec. 227id. — We are lying three miles oflF the town, the white
houses clustering round the large cathedral, the dome of which
we can plainly see. There is only one foot of water under our
keel, the Inconstant has but half a foot. The width across the
Plate River from Monte Video to the opposite shore of the Argentine
Republic is sixty-three miles ; the extreme width of the mouth
lower down from Maldonado to Cabo San Antonio is 150 miles

266 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

from shore to shore. Higher up, opposite Bnenos Aires, it is thirty-
four miles across, and in the narrowest part, higher up still, its
width is twenty-three miles. From Monte Video to that point is
125 miles. This huge estuary at one time extended to Diamante,
at the bend of the Paraiia. Nature is steadily filling it up; its
average depth at low water is only eighteen feet, and there are
many and extensive sandbanks in it, over which there are never
more than two or three feet. The pampero (from the west) and
the sea winds (from the east) cause constant changes in its depth.
The volume of water discharged by the Plate is more than the
aggregate discharge of all the rivers of Europe together ; the basin
from whence it draws its streams is 1,500 miles long, and much of it
lies within the tropics, where there is always an abundant rain-fall.
Found here H.M.S. Garnet (Captain Loftus Jones, senior oflScer
of south-east coast), and H.U.'8 gunboats Forward (Lieut.-Com-
manding, E. F. Brickdale), and Swallow (Commander J. B.Warren) ;
and the United States frigate Shenandoah, As it looks very black in
the west, with lightning and squalls, we all send down the upper
yards ; there is every appearance that we shall have a pampero, as a
gale from the south-west is here called, on account of its coming off
the pampas. It gains strength as it travels across the vast plains,
unbroken by any inequalities of the ground, and bursts with great
force seaward. The end of the day was occupied with reading
English mails and newspapers, and fishing off the glacis. The
Hon. E. T. Monson, C.B., British minister to Uruguay, came out
in the Forward, and called on the Admiral.

Dec. 2Srd. — H.M.'s gunboat Flk came down from Buenos Aires
(120 miles up the river), with Sir Horace Rumbolt, Bart., on board,
the British minister to the Argentine Confederation. After lying
for some little time off the Bacchante she proceeded to take His
Excellency up the harbour and ashore to Monte Video; but as
several cutters of the squadron had got adrift and were unable,
under oars, to make any way against the heavy squalls and the
sea that was running, she went round to pick them up and tow
them back to their ships, which delayed her over an hour.
Landed at Monte Video and walked up to Mr. Monson's, and then
out for a walk about the town, over the cathedral and Plaza and
the *' 18th of July " Boulevard. The town stands on the ridge
of a hill, which is the easternmost horn of a small bay about two
miles long, and one and a-half broad. Across on the western side of
this bay is the peak, 500 feet high, which gives the place its name,

1880. MONTE VIDEO. 267

" Sightly Hill." This small bay on the north shore of the River
Plate is supposed to have once formed the crater of a volcano,
and is shaped like a horse-shoe. All the streets run away at right
angles from the central street, which is on the ridge of the eastern
promontory, down the slopes on either side to the water's edge,
so that any movement in the air is felt at once in the centre of the
town ; and the ships are visible at the end of most of these streets,
which cross at pretty regular intervals of ninety-five yards. We went
over the theatre, a fine commodious building, and saw the large
church of St. Francis, now building in red brick. Tramways
run in all directions, up and down hill and round comers ;
every one seems to ride in them, and as there are no cushions or
linings but only the bare wooden seats (which are reversible), they
are cool and pleasant conveyances. Drove out in one to the
Prado, fifty minutes distance from the town, a large building, once
a mansion, then a hotel, and now deserted and broken down, but
standing in the midst of the remains of a large and once well laid-
out garden, with much statuary down the avenues. Saw here the
preparations which are being made for the garden party. In the
neighbourhood are several pretty quintas with their gardens, and
a great number of eucalyptus trees. The air was deliciously dry
and cool. The population of Monte Video, one- third of whom are
immigrants, is over 100,000 — a quarter of all the people in the
Republic of Uruguay. The soldiers of the Uruguayan Republic
are dressed in white Zouave uniforms, and look fine, sturdy, and
well cared-for men in their barracks ; blacks, Indians, and Spaniards
serve all in the same regiment. There are five regiments of
cavalry, two of artillery, and three battalions of riflemen ; in all
under 3,500 men. Santos, the War Minister, seems to be most
powerful here.^ There are four other ministers. The President
of the Republic (elected for four years — Doctor Vidal) is a medical
man still in practice. The constitution of the Republic was pro-
claimed 18th of July, 1831. There are two Houses, the Senate and
Chamber of Representatives ; when they are not sitting a permanent
Committee of two Senators and five Representatives, with the
President, have legislative and administrative power. The Represen-
tatives (of whom there are forty-six) are chosen for three years, in
the proportion of 1 to every 3,000 males who can read and write.
There is one Senator for each of the eighteen departments into

1 Elected President March 1, 1882, on the resignation of the late President.

268 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

which Uruguay is divided ; they are chosen for six years, and one-
third of the Senate must retire every two years.

Dee. 24fth. — The Forward came out at 3 P.M. to take any officers
on shore that wished to go. So we went on shore in her with the
doctor and two gun-room messmates and walked about the town,
which is quite like a clean European capital. There is a great
quantity of white marble, brought out in Italian ships as ballast,
and numbers of the houses are faced with a dado of marble, and
nearly all the staircases, even of the smaller houses, are con-
structed of white marble ; most are flat-roofed, and have a little
tower for outlook and taking the air. The windows are protected
with wrought-iron work, sometimes gilded and ornamented. The
chief shops were (as you might have expected) those of the shoe-
makers and saddlers, ironmongers and butchers ; and one or two
first-rate chemists. Articles of foreign origin are very dear, as
the import duties are high ; but the absolute necessities of life
are abundant and cheap, and there is little real poverty in the
country. Each inhabitant (according to the Customs returns), con-
sumes £17 ISs. worth of British goods a year — these are chiefly
manufactured cotton and woollen goods. The imports from Great
Britain amount to a third of the whole import trade; and the
exports to Great Britain amount to a fourth of the exports of
Uruguay ; they are mainly the raw products of the slaughter-house
— hides, tallow, wool, bones and horns ; and besides these, live stock
and preserved meats ; the total value of all exports is about five
millions sterling per annum. The imports are less, and amongst
them are butter and cheese, which are curious items for a pastoral
country to import at an additional cost to the consumer of at least
forty per cent., including freight charges and duties. Of the 1,044
vessels which entered the port of Monte Video in 1879, 285 were
English, 157 Spanish, 145 Italian, and 112 German. The revenues
are derived principally from Custems dues, only a very small sum
from direct taxation and licenses. The total receipts last year were
two and a-half millions sterling, and the total expenditure slightly
under that sum ; half the last is payment of interest on State debt,
which is now nearly thirteen millions sterling. The import duties
are very high — on many articles of food and general consumption
as much as thirty-seven per cent. ; they are forty-five per cent, on
spirits, tobacco, and arras, and twenty-five per cent on cotton goods.
There is no industry in the country that needs protection, but im-
port dues are supposed to be the easiest method of raising taxation

1880. ADMIKAL'3 INSPECTION OF THE SHIP. 269

in a thinly peopled country. We dined together at the Hot^l
Oriental, where also we slept, after going to a little dance which
Mr. Monson, the British minister, gave. So fell our Christmas Eve.
Christmas Day, — A sunny morning, but squally ; we went off to the
BaccharUe in time for church, which to-day, quite exceptionally, we
had on the upper deck. The band played the hymn tunes (Nos. 50,
60, 62) out of Ancient and Modem, and very well they sounded
under the awning, with the men's voices in the open air; the
harmonium played the usual chants. The men's mess places on
the lower deck were decorated with green in Christmas style, and
furnished with little extras, according to the varying tastes of their
members. To each mess we had sent round a packet of Christmas
cards, one for each member with his name upon it. All the boys in the
ship in the same way had small Christmas boxes from England,
knives, housewives, tartan for cap lining, and other sailors' treasures,
and especially those who had sung in the choir, and done their
best in school and drill during the half-year. All the officers
dined together under the poop, and after dinner sang songs.

Dec. 27th, — At 9.30 a.m. Eear- Admiral the Earl of Clanwilliam,
C.B., came on board to inspect the Bacchante, It was a very hot day,
the sun was blazing, and not a breath of wind was stirring. We
manned yards, and afterwards mustered by open list (when every
officer and man in the ship, as his name was called, passed before the
Admiral) ; his lordship then went all over the ship and inspected
some of the bedding and the hammox)ks« After the dinner-hour
he came again with his torpedo and gunnery lieutenants. We
hoisted out, manned and armed the boats, exercised at fire and
then at general quarters, and at 5 P.M. the Admiral left the ship.
At midnight, after a perfectly calm day, a strong puff of wind,
laden with the soent of the pampas and their dry grass came off
the land, which was the beginning of a small pampero, which blew
freshly all the morning watch up to noon.

Dee. 2Sth. — At 5.30 P.M. we went on board the Elk (Commander
Clanchy), and picked up the Admiral, the flag-captain and lieu-
tenant, and many other officers ; we landed at the Custom House
and walked up to the Oriental Hotel, where carriages were waiting,
into which we all got and drove off to El Prado, where a large
garden party was given by the British residents to the Admiral
And officers of the squadron. We were invited for 6 P.M. and thus
had an hour or so of daylight to wander about the grounds, which
were afterwards very prettily illuminated with various coloured

270 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

lanterns hanging from the trees, especially the avenue leading up
the hill from the gateway to the large platform round the fountain,
which was festooned with lanterns on either side, and where a cold
refection was laid out on long tables. At this Mr. McCall, the chair-
man of the committee, presided, with the Admiral on his right
hand and Mr. Monson on his left. There was dancing after-
wards, both in the open air and in the rooms of the building. The
American officers from the Shejiandoah, and the Spaniards and
also the Brazilians from their gunboats, were invited. We left
about 10.30 P.M., and slept at the Oriental Hotel, which was very
full, so that the sitting-rooms were utilised for sleeping by the
midshipmen.

Dec. 29th, — Up to the central railway station by 7 A.M., where
Mr. Monson and Mr. Chamberlain, the manager of the line, met
the Admiral and his party. We went in a special train, consisting
of two large and very lengthy saloon carriages, to Durazno, 130
miles up country, the furthest point inland towards the Brazilian
frontier to which, at present, the railway has been extended. We
passed Canelones and Santa Lucia (33 miles out, where are the
waterworks planned and owned by an English company for supplying
Monte Video with pure water), and stopped at 10 A.M. at Florida
for an hour, where a first-rate breakfast had been prepared ; from
here the two members of the Uruguayan ministry, who had accom-
panied the Admiral thus far, returned to town. The railway track,
to avoid the difficulties of levelling, pursues a most meandering
course round the various rising undulations, none of which are much
over thirty feet high. The country through which we pass consists
chiefly of broad undulating pampas, and resembles what much of
England would be, if bared of villages, hedgerows, churches and
woods. It is covered with grass of various kinds, green and brown,
mostly turf, over which, at great distances apart, herds of cattle,
horses and sheep, wander and graze. The absence of timber and
native forest on the pampas is difficult to explain. By the side of
the line, here and there, are growing large patches of giant thistles
and cactus ; what few trees there are to break the monotony of the
prospect are chiefly newly-planted eucalyptus and acacias in the
neighbourhood of occasional estancias. Some of these eucalyptus
trees are from over 80 to 100 feet in height, and they were imported
from Australia and planted only twelve years ago. Leaving
Monte Video there are many pretty quintas in the suburbs, which
extend for three or four miles each side of the line ; the fields are

1880- MONTE VIDEO. DURAZXO. 271

here divided by hedgerows of aloes, which remind us of the pinguin
hedges in Jamaica, but afterwards the country gets wilder and more
and more open, until at last, at about noon, we run into Durazno
over the long viaduct which spans the river Yi, a tributary of the
Rio Negro ; and which is bordered on the banks with copses of
bushes like bog myrtle.

[We at first wondered why this substantial and expensive
viaduct had been erected, as the town itself of Durazno seemed
but a small one ; but we learnt that the river, though at this
season of the year it is low and apparently small, except where
it broadens into pools, yet, in the winter time, or after rain,
when in full flood is of a considerable breadth, and that it
thus offers the chief obstacle to the traffic of hides and wools
that come down from the country inland to Monte Video. Till
the bridge was made the railway could not compete with the
carts of the country for the conveyance of these, as when the
carts were once over the river they ran down to the coast at the
lower rate of the two. By the bridge, however, the railway has
now tapped all the trade beyond the river, and very few carts now
come down beyond Durazno. This railway was to have gone on
to the frontier of Brazil, 150 miles further, but there is a difficulty
in obtaining the English capital necessary for constructing it ; the
present line was begun twelve years ago, and now pays three per
cent., and would pay a great deal more if the government were a
stable one. Although the railways have rendered local emeutes
and revolutions, of the sort which formerly distracted the country,
impossible, as the central government in power is now always
able, by their means, to convey troops to any spot where a dis-
turbance may ariee and put it down at once, yet still there is
more liability to sudden changes of government, through factious
jealousies in the capital, than perhaps, at present, we are used
to in Europe. There is no doubt that the railways in these
South American States will bring about gradually, but surely, as
they have already done in various countries where they have been
constructed, a vast change in their commercial, social, and political
development. The sources of wealth which now lie hidden
beneath the soil of these states all down along the mountain
ranges, consisting of metals, minerals, and precious stones, are
practically unlimited. Large also as are the herds and flocks
which wander and graze upon the pampas, they are nothing in
comparison to those which these limitless downs, with their rich

272 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1380.

black soil seven feet deep, are capable of rearing. The only diflB-
culty is population. Uruguay is not yet peopled ; one-fourth of
the soil is yet without ownership, and is not even surveyed. The
area of the whole country (76,000 square miles), is considerably
larger than that of England and Wales. Its coast-line on the Atlantic
is 200 miles, that on the south is 155, and its western shore line
along the river Uruguay (which separates it from Paraguay,
which in its turn is again about the size of England and Wales),
is 155 miles. Its total population is only 450,000 (less than
that of Birmingham or Baltimore) ; but it is absolutely free from
any vestige of that indigenous or Indian population which in
many South American countries gives such trouble. For a
century and a quarter (from 1624, when the first attempts were
made to colonise it) the country belonged nominally and alter-
nately to the Spaniards and Portuguese ; early in the nineteenth
century the question of dominion was settled finally in favour of
the Spaniards. Even in those early days it was discovered that
the most advantageous objects of industry were hides and tallow.
The whole of the Plate district was then included in the Vice-
royalty of Peru ; subsequently a separate viceroy was established
in Buenos Aires. After turning out the British in 1807, the states
of the Plate rebelled against Spain, and then began the series of
troubles which they would have escaped had they remained
British ; they had no strength to stand alone, and were torn by
intestine factions. At one time Uruguay stood independent ; at
another it was subdued by the Argentines ; then it was incorporated
with Portugal ; afterwards with Brazil. Each of these in turn
fought over its possession, and meanwhile its inhabitants were the
prey of each. In 1828 they appealed to Great Britain to mediate,
and Uruguay was declared a state, sovereign and indepeudent.
Emigration is now steadily supplying population, chiefly from
Switzerland and Italy. Ever since Garibaldi, in his youth, won
his first laurels at Monte Video, the Italians have emigrated in
large numbers to this and other States bordering on the Plate.
In process of time there is no doubt that the descendants of these
settlers will swamp, in point of numbers, those of the native
Spaniards. In the department of Monte Video alone there are
twice as many foreigners who possess freehold property as native-
bom Uruguayans. Every man on landing here becomes ipso facto a
citizen of the Republic, and already some of the higher offices in the
government are held by such new-comers. Be it from what cause

1880. RAILWAYS MAKE FEDERATION EASIER. 273

it may, there is no doubt that emigrants to South America, both
in former days and in the present, learn sooner to identify them-
selves with their adopted country than is the case in any other
quarter of the globe ; it was so in the olden days of the Spanish
domination, when no one bated the rule of Spain more than the
descendants, in the second or third generation, of those who had
originally colonised the country. Heterogeneous as may be the
component parts, they are gradually but infallibly coalescing to
build up what in the future will be the United States of South
America. Jealousies, rivalries, and faction fights have been, and
will, of course, be here productive, not only in each State in itself,
but also between State and State, of the greatest mischief. But as
each man and as each state learns more and more to perceive that
their interest lies, both individually and collectively, in the develop-
ment of the material resources with which nature has so richly
endowed the land to which they are, one and all, more or less
attached ; and as the extension of the railway system knits
together these various States and renders communication, now
practically impossible between the most distant, easy and natural,
the same result will ensue which has already followed in Canada, and
which is following in Australia, where Union and Confederation give
not only strength to the commercial developments of those countriesi
but also width and depth to their political sentiments of patriotism
and empire. It will, of course, inevitably require a certain amount
of time before such consummation can be brought to pass ; and
probably the States of South America will first combine, either
peaceably or after war, into two Confederations : consisting, the
one, of those to the East, and the other, of those to the West of the
Andes. But as far as can be foreseen, even this division cannot be
of long continuance. Already the railway, which will bring Buenos
Aires within forty-eight hours of Valparaiso, has been constructed
over two-thirds of the distance ; and the produce of the Eastern
States is just that which the Western require, and in their turn the
W^estem have long felt that their own full development was only to
be brought about by freer intercourse with those on the Eastern
slopes of the Andes. This has been shown, although perhaps in
some cases more or less blindly, by the execution in Peru of some
of the most stupendous engineering operations which even this
generation has seen. At present the money lavished on the Oroya,
and Cuzco lines which wind and climb through tunnels and over
viaducts amid the almost inaccessible passes of the Andes, may
VOL. I. T

274 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

appear to have been wasted, or spent chiefly in jobbery or for
party purposes ; but in the end it will not be so. The energy and
ability which have been exhibited by Chili in the present war with
Peru reflect on one at least of these South American republics
the very greatest credit, and show that there at least politics and
government are something more than a trade. And as in that
particular contest the more honest, and the better administered
of the two Western States has completely vanquished the governing
power of the other, so, in like manner, though let us hope with
less effusion of blood, the more vigorous of the £astem States will,
in their turn, take the lead and bear the chief hand in making into
one strong Federal state the four (Argentines, Paraguay, Uruguay,
and Brazil) which are now broken up into rival and mutually
.jealous republics. Brazil, though nominally a monarchy, is, for all
practicable purposes, a republic ; and probably to her statesmen
aud to those of the Argentine Confederation will belong, in the
near future, the lead of the Federated Eastern states. The
population of the Argentine republic even now exceeds that of the
five provinces of Australia ; the resources and the climate, for the
most part, both much resemble those of our great island continent
in the southern seas. At the beginning of this century there
were many English merchant^ established at Monte Video. In
June, 1806, both it and Buenos Aires were taken possession of by
the English ; and in the following year General Whitelocke was sent
out with a supplementary force. He most ignominiously capitu-
lated in September, 1807.^ That was in the days before the tide

1 The history of this now almost forgotten attempt to bring Soath America be-
neath the British flag, which if it had been successful would undoubtedly have
established here one of the most flourishing of £nglish colonies, is as follows. In
1761, when the forces of Spain and France were banded together under the Bourbon
family in contest with England for World empire, aud for the destruction of British
commerce, the elder Pitt had purposed to liberate the S[)auish possessions in the
New World. As the dream of French empire in India had been destroyed at Plassey
in 1757, aud the dream of another French empire in North America had been wreckeil
at Montreal in 1760, so ihat of the Spaniaitl was fcirailarly to be destroyed in South
America. In 1797 when millions of hules wei*e rotting in the warehouses of Monti*.
Video and Buenos Aires, because the British cruisers had in the war with Spain ami
France to maintain the blockade of the Plate, it was concluded that the people of
these states, opfiressed beneath the yoke of Spain, would soon see that their interests
would be best served by making cause with England. But the peace of Amiens in
1802 put an end for the time to the project of their deliverance. It was, however,
no less a favourite scheme of the younger Pitt than of his father, and it was revived
and put in execution soon after the opening of tlie European war in 1803. The
Plate fleet was captured and the tribute to Spain (over two millions sterling) was
brought into London with much pomp and jwnular rejoicing. The youngt^r Pitt
died in J»muary 1806, but in June of that year (the year after the battle of Trafalgar)
a small British squadron appeared in the Plate, the same as had sailed in the previous
autumn to the Cape of Good Hope, aud in the spring of 1806 secured the Dutch

1880. A SOUTH-AMERICAN AUSTRALIA. 275

of emigration had begun to' flow from the British shores to
Australia ; and if, instead of flowing eastward, it had gone west-
ward to these so similar lands, the British sheep fai-mers and ore
miners would have had as much to do in the rearing of the United
States of South America as they have had in the furnishing
substance for the vigorous and healthy growth of the United
States of North America ; and would have been a strong nucleus
to assimilate here the descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese
with the same ease as they have those of the French in

colonies, and taken the whole Dutch army there as priaon<>rs of war, from the other
ally of France, whose kingdom in Europe Napoleon had transferred to his own
brother Louis : and thus the mastery of Holland by the Fitmch had led to the
transfer of her colonies to the British Crown as a measure of self-defence. Spain
was already Napoleon's subservient ally ; he ruthlessly meditated making her
and Portugal his t>wn, hoping that with their mighty dominions in South
and Central America he might renew with vastly increased forces the stmggle
with Biitain for her empire of the seas. These were the designs which the
English were driven if possible to forestall, and the best means of so. doing
appeared to be the cairying out of the project of Liberation that had been en-
tertained by the two Pitts. ^Vhen Sir Home Popham with his squadron from the
Cape appeared off Buenos Aires, the Spanish Viceroy at once fli'd. In the desjiatch
announcing to the authorities at home the success of his achievement Sir Home in-
vited English merchants to come to the magnificent new centre of trade thus opened.
A few British troops, in all 1,635 (consistiitg of the 71st Highlandera, some blue-
jackets, and artillery) under General Beresford quietly occupied Buenos Aires on the
27th June ; so faint was the show of resistance offered by this city of 60,000 in-
liabitants, that only one Englishman was killed. It was not so much a conquest as
a fraternization with the colonists that Befc^ord hoped for, as he at once ex])i'e8sed
in his Manifesto (July 2nd) to the people. All the judges, and denes, all the militaiy
and civil officers in the place, took the oath of allegiance to the King of England ;
and the newcomers were welcomed and on friendly teitus from the begiuuiiig with the
chief citizens. So secure did Beresford fancy himself to be that he sent away a con-
siderable poition of the little force he had, back to England (July 1 0th) in convoy
of the Spanish treasure captured, and with the news of his brilliant success, where
they arrived September, 1806. Some of the disaffected of the citizens, however,
observing the scanty numbers of the English, at the instigation and under the
leadership of a Frenchman named Liniers, and with the aid of some French priva-
teeramen w^hom he brought across the river tinder cover of a fog (August 4th),
rallied the remains of the Spanish garrison and attacked the English in the streets
of Buenos Aires. From the central square they were <lriven by superior numbera to
retire to the fort hard by, aud there on the 12th August, Beresford consented to
withdraw from the city which he had held forty-five days aud go on board the
English ships in the Roads. Liniers ]iromiscd on his part to maintain order if the
English came out of the fort. No sooner had the British piled their anus than the
]jromise made was broken by Liniers. On getting them into his hands he insisted on
sending the English as captives into the interior (September 20th). Most of them,
however, by the help of friendly colonists afterwards escaped, and Beresford lived
till 1854. He served with Sir John Moore at Coi-tinna in 1808, aud in the peninsular
cramxAign under Wellington. Scarcely, however, had this untoward event happened
at Buenos Aires than reinforcements from the Cape of Good Hope (3,500 strong)
arrived at Monte Video ; and in February 1807, another equadron from England
under Admiral Stirling with General AuchmUty, and in May another under Admiral
Murray and General Crawford with 5,000 more troops. A month later came General
Whitelocke, as Governor-General of South Afnerica on a salary of 12,000/. a year. The
8f[nadron was under ordere to sail round the Horn, and deliver Valparaiso in Chili
from the Spaniards, and to establish jKjsts across the country connecting that city
with Buenos Aires, and thus at last to execute the loiig-chcii&hcd plan of Lord

T 2

276 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

Louisiana and the Spanish of Florida or the Eutch of New
York.]

At Durazno station we found a number of saddle-ponies and
saddle-horaes (worth 3/. each on an average) waiting for us, with
Mr. Dunster, who began life as a midshipman in the service (for
fifteen months), but who now lives on the pampas, and is the only
man that the gauchos confess is able to tame and ride the wildest
horses just as well as they can. We all mounted, and first galloped
over the turf of the pampas to Rodeo (i.e. " a well-worn spot "),

Adsoii. Buenos Aires, however, must first be re-occupied, and for that purpose seven
£i)gllsh regiments were lauded and marched up to Buenos Aires (July 1st) ; but even
after the warning which Beresford had received, serious warlike operations do not
seem to have been anticipated by the new Governor-General. His officers after slight
resistance offered, took the city (July 2) ; but Whitolocke through treachery or in-
competence wou'd not advance. He even removed the flints from the muskets of
the Connaught Rangers and sent them forward into the central square, and seems to
have dune ail he could to get the rest of his troops entangled in the streets through
which he ordered them to march without firing a shot even if attacked. So strange
and imbecile an attempt to retrieve the disastrous effect of the retreat of a few months
before could not but invite the Spaniards with superior forces to close in on the un-
resisting English from the neighbouring streets on all sides ; without food or
drink and without ammunition they could not but surrender. Whitelocke, who had
remained three miles in the rear, made haste to propose to capitulate and to purchase
his own safety and that of the survivors of the men whom he had ordered into this
ridiculous but tragic plight, by agreeing on the 6th of July with the still active
French Colonel Liniei-s to evacuate the province within two months. Liniers seeing
with what sort of man he had to bargain, added to this agreement at the last moment
** and Monte Video also." Whitelocke consented without another woi-d, and Monto
Video which the English had held for seven months was also ''given up." Further
reinfoi-cemeuts of 2,000 men had arrived »t Monte Video from England on July 5th,
and Auchmuty strongly uiged Whitelocke to make another effort before consenting
to such ignominy, but in vain. Out of the 10,000 men with whom he sot out from
Monte Video to Buenos Aires, 817 were killed and twice as many wounded in this
fiasco. Liniers now made himself Governor-General of the Plate ; three years
later (26th August 1810), he was shot by order of the National Committee. In the
judgment of the Court Martial which tried Whitelorke for this disgraceful and silly
conduct of the expedition he was held "totally unfit to serve His Majesty in any
military capacity whatever," and the popular voice changed his name to General
Whitefeathcr. He would undoubtedly have been shot, had he not had a very near
relative in one of the royal dukes. The news of the ease with w^hich Beresford had
at first overthrown the Spanish power a])parently led the Ministry at home to suppose
that it did not mutter much who they sent as Governor- General, since he would have
capable and gallant officers, such as Crawford nnd Auclimuty, beside him. Whitelocke,
although he had once before disgraced himself by cowardice in the West Indies, was
therefore selected for what seemed a lucrative aud easy |K)st. The only [possible
excuse that can be made for his conduct is tliat he was weak wit ted, and certainly no
worse than the S()aiiLsh Viceroy, Sobremonte, whose place he was sent to occupy.
There was probably no man of that geiteration whose name was more loathed and
execrated as a tmitor ; for some years afterwards there was a common toast, making
a loyal distinction between the father and son : "Success to grey hairs, but a curse
on white locks." So ended the atteitlpt to make South America a British colony.
A splendid opportunity was thrown away, a gallant army sacrificed, and a slur brought
upon the English name. The colonists whom the English had imagined would hail
them as deliverers and come to their support against the Spanish garrison were
supine : the distances over which they were scattered were immense, and means of
communication were difficult. Moreover, although the country was so sparsely
inhabited, there was a short-sighted party among them who dreaded the advent of

1880. USE OF THE LASSO AND BOLAS. 277

where we saw lassoing and bolasing practised. The bola (or sling)
consists of three balls, each about two inches in diameter, bub
sometimes smaller ; two are heavy and the third is light. Each ball
is attached to the end of a piece of plaited raw hide about two
yards long ; the ends of all these thongs are made fast together in
a knot. When about to be used, the lighter ball is held fast in
the hand and swung round the head in a circular manner, causing
the two heavy balls to revolve at the end of their thongs ; the
whole is then let fly at the legs of the animal that is to be

other immigrants into their territory, and the proclamation of free trade instead of
the Spanifth monopoly ; and with an exclusive and selfish narrowness feared that, if
the English were once f>ermanently established at Buenos Aires, emigrants frum
Europe would wish to settle on these boundless pampas ; in the hope therefore, of
shutting out all fresh comers, though they disliked the Spanish yoke they would not
aid the English. That the calculation, however, of the British Ministry at home was
not altogether wrong as to the good will of mauy of the Argentine colonists towards
England was shown oy subsec^uent events. When three years later (in 1 81 0) it became
known on the Plate that Spam was a conquered country, and under the heel of the
French armies whom Wellington was opposing, all the Spanish South American
colonies one after the other tnrew off her authority, and the Plate States amongst
them, and most of the Spanish troops then in the country went over to the cause of
Independence. The leader of the revolt ixi Buenos Aires was General Belgrano.
But under the total anarchy that then followed in the Argentine capital and provinces
it was no easy matter to establish a new government over the scattered and half
civilised population of this vast country. The estapcieros kept what order they
could in their immediate neighbourhood among their gauchos and Indian tribes, and
banded themselves together in loose defensive leagues \ji each province. But in 1814
Belgrano came to England, with instructions from the leading citizens to beg the
English to return to the Plate, and asked for an English protectorate, if possible
under an English Prince. But the Napoleonic war was over ; the tyrant had abdi-
cated April 4th, 1814 ; and in the same year the Allied Sovereigns were visiting
London. The political reasons for opposition to Spain had now passed away. It
was "too late." The English as a government would do nothing for them now ;
Ihey must sti-uggle as best they might out of the disorder and confusion which they had
brought upon themselves. In the War of Independence, however, that lasted from 1810
to 1826, tne indomitable energj' of our countrymen, who, like Byron in the Greek
War of Independence, voluntarily gave their services on behalf of freedom, aided
vastly in the emancipation of Souih Amerio^i ; and they have become the national
heroes of the several States they fought for. In Venezuela «jider General MacGregor
as many as 5,000 British subjects fell lighting between 1818 and 1826 ; Admiral
Brown in the Argentine service destroyed the Spanish naval power on the eastern
side, while Lord Dundonald in the service of Chili did the same on the western
coast and afterwards entered the Brazilian service. General Miller, in the
service of Pen], won the final and decisive battle of Ayacucho : and in 1821
Bolivar confessed that it was the steadiness of the British legion of volunteers that
secured the independence of Colombia. The exploits of these leaders, as well as
those of the many English officers who served wit n them both on t-hore and afloat,
may perhaps be held to have helped forward the fulfilment of that prophecy which
was said by the Spaniards themselves to have been written in the Aztec temple of
the sun at Cuzco, that the delivery of South America would be effected by a nation
called English. Lord Palmerston reckoned that 150 millions of English money
had been sunk in loans and enterprises in the South American states. Since then
they are what they are mainly through the indirect help of the English, it causes
one all the more to regret that their liberation and subsequent development was not
more directly, more thoroughly, and more cheaply accomj)lished by carrying out the
policy of Canning and the two Pitts, and bringing them beneath the British flag.

278 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

caught, the balls wind round thera and tie him up securely, an<l
over he falls on his side. Two or three horses that had never
been ridden were thus caught and afterwards mounted for the first
time, after much resistance, by gauchos, or native horsemen, who
are, by descent, a mixture of Spaniard and Indian ; they are, from
infancy, trained to the use of the lasso and the handling of horses
and cattle. A series of pads and rugs were put upon the horse
while lying on the ground with his legs tied, and a strong bridle
with very powerful bit and ring was put in his mouth. He was
then allowed to get up, and the gaucho sprang on his back with
great agility ; two other riders on tame horses rode alongside or
behind to bump him when requisite. AH his buck-jumping could
not get his rider out of the saddle ; the man drove him into
a gallop, and away they went over the open pampas till the horse
got blown, and gave in. We then had another fine scamper over
the plain to where, a few miles oflF, under a clump of trees, came
cum cuiro, or " beef cooked in the hide," had been prepared, one
of the luxuries of " the camp " or up-country life. The whole
half of a carcase is roasted, on long iron rods for spits, before a
camp-fire ; it certainly preserves its flavour thus, and some pieces
were very succulent and good. The mate, or Paraguayan tea,
too was very refreshing. It is the dried leaves of a species of
Ilex, which the Indians gather in the forests, chiefly in the province
of Parana, and a supply of which is carried by each of the gauchos,
in a powdered form, in k small bag attached to his belt, together
with a small hollow globular calabash or bowl about three inches
in diameter (like an orange with a hole an inch across at the top),
and sometimes mounted in silver — which he half fills with these
greenish-coloured powdered leaves, and after pouring hot water
upon them, then imbibes the liquid up through a silver or other
tube about twelve inches long; in this way you get not more
than two teaspoonfuls of liquid. The effect of this tea on those
not used to it sometinaes produces diarrhoea, but those who are
habituated to its use find that by its help they can endure the
longest day's work even without food. It is exported in packets
two feet square, tightly compressed in ox-hide. We stayed in the
shade of the trees listening to various tales of gaucho adventure,
some, perhaps, overdrawn, but all more or less entertaining.
The gauchos are fine-looking fellows, all with a hardy air of well-
fed contentment, and as they live in the saddle and open air are as
brown as mahogany. The head gaucho on Mr. Dunster's estancia

1880, DURAZNO. 279

or farm, a German by extraction, gave Eddy some furs which he
liad himself prepared, of jaguar, wild cat, and seals, and to George
a couple of lassos and bolas, which we had seen used earlier in
the day. Then after another good gallop to see some fine oxen
that had been penned, and also some horses, we returned to
Durazno station. We were all very hot and dusty, so Mr.
Chamberlain proposed that those who would like a bathe should
mount the engine that was standing in the station, and run back
on it to the other side of the viaduct, and there go down to the
river for a swim, which was accordingly done. The elder members
of the party had their bath in the room under the engine tank,
where cold water was pumped over them. We returned to dinner
which had been brought up from Monte Video in the train, and
which was now laid out in a long room at the station, prettily
decorated for the occasion. What few rooms there were, were
afterwards utilised for sleeping, but the majority slept veiy com-
fortably in a long train — brought up for that purpose from Monte
Video — of luggage waggons, in each of which a couple of iron camp
bedsteads with washhand-stands, &c., had been rigged up. Before
breakfast next morning the whole train was run down to the
river, and the occupants bathed luxuriously before dressing. The
air up here is most invigorating, and wonderfully light and dry ;
and the natural moisture after exertion is quickly absorbed from
the surface of the skin ; and one is quite surprised at the amount
of liquid in the shape of light wine, lemonade, or oranges, that it
requires to allay one*s thirst.

[There are only two classes of immigrants fitted for Uruguay —
those who are accustomed to manual labour (as farm labourers or
mechanics), and those who have capital to invest. Nondescripts
and loafers come here to a speedy end ; weeds at home, they are
worse than weeds here. Cattle rearing is the chief industry ; it
requires more land and less labour than agriculture, but more local
and special knowledge than sheep-farming. The cattle industry,
like everything else in Uruguay, is influenced by the existing
stAte of transition from the semi-barbarous freedom, or lawlessness,
of a thinly-peopled and pastoral country, to a condition similar to
that of a British colony. But even so, there is probably no country
in the world (not even the Argentine republic) so rich in htrds of
cattle, if the number be estimated in proportion to population ot
extent of territory. In 1878 the proportion was 32 head of
cattle per square kilometre, and 1.385 for every hundred of the

280 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCUANTE. 1880.

population ; of sheep there were 65 per square kilometre, and 2,770
for every hundred of the population. In Buenos Aires, however,
of sheep there were 215 per kilometre, and 8,275 for every
hundred of the population, but of cattle there were only 930 for
every hundred of the population, and 24 per square kilometre.
The rearing of cattle is undoubtedly attended by great risks.
Diseases and droughts may destroy them by hundreds. The
droughts are more fatal to cattle than to sheep. In the whole
of Uruguay there are, this year, twenty millions of sheep, one
and a-half million horses, and at least seven million cattle, valued
at about ten millions sterling — that is to say, nearly twice as many
sheep as there are in the colony of Victoria, more horses than
there are in the who!e of Australia, and nearly as many cattle.
The wool is said to compare favourably with the choicest wool from
Australia; most of it is consumed, however, not in England, but in
Belgium and Germany. The sheep industry on any large scale
dates only from 1855 ; now 50,000,000 lbs. of wool are exported
annually. Shepherds earn about 35^. a year, lodging, and rations
as much as they can eat; unmarried Englishwomen, if careful
hands at housekeeping, can easily find places at the same wages,
and soon marry.

1. Suppose the case of any one starting with a capital of 1,500Z.
He could rent about 5,600 acres at about 80/. per annum ; on which
he would easily maintain 8,000 sheep and 500 cattle. 2,400 sheep
(at 105. each) would cost 1,200/. ; thirty mares and horses 25/. On
two station-houses he would expend 160/., and on furniture, cart,
and implements, 40/. ; in all, 1,425/. His original stock in five
years would increase to 8,800, or (deducting sheep sold) to 7,400 ;
and his balance-sheet (with average luck), should stand thus : —

Receipt for Wool, Ist year

.. £180

Expenditure, 1st year

jgl50

,, ,, 2n(l year

240

,, 2nd year

180

3rtl year

320

,, 3rd year

240

Sale of 1,400 Sheep

600

,, 4th year

240

Sale of Wool, 4th year ... .

320

,, 5 th year

300

„ „ 5th year ... .

400

^1,110
400

Total receipt

.. £2,0(50

Rent of ground (5 years) .

Total expenditure

.. 1,510

£1,510

£.550

5,000 Sheep increase at 10«. .

.. 1,970

Horses, &c., at half cost ... .

100

So that at the end of the

fifth year lie

has more than doubled his capital

Profits in five years

.. £3,150

1880.

WHAT MAY BE DONE IN URUGUAY.

281

2. Supposing a man starts with 5,000/. capital ; then he had better
purchase, not rent. He can purchase about 5,600 acres for 2,000t
(the average price of pasture land is Gs. Sd, an acre ; of arable,
11, 88., although the greater part of what is now used for pastoral
purposes could be converted ultimately into arable land) — stock it
with 3,000 sheep for 1,500/. ; 600 head of cattle, 450/. ; horses,
50/.; buildings and implements, 600/. The increase on horned
cattle is generally estimated at one-third on capital. Thus in five
years his balance-sheet should show thus : —

Increase Ist year..,
,, 2nd year
,, 3r(I year
,, 4th year
,, 5th year

Sales

Stock of Sheep.
3,000
1,000
1,300
1,700
1,800
2,000

Capital

Net Increase

Receipts.

Sale of Wool, 1st year ...

... £225

,, 2n(l year ...

300

,, 3rd year

... 520

„ 4th year

... 550

,, 5th year

... 450

1,400 Sheep sold

600

1,400 „

600

400 head of cattle

... 300

400 „

... 300

£3,845

Deduct exi^enses

... 1,800

Surplus cash

... ^2,045

6,000 Sheep

... 2,500

760 head of cattle

570

10,800
2,800

8,000
3,000

6.000

Of Cattle.
600
200
260
860
840
400

2,160
800

1,360
600

760

Ist year
2nd year
8rd year
4th year
5th year

ExPENriTURE.

. jCSOO
300
850
400
450

£1,800

Profit in five years, 5,115/., on an outlay of 4,600/.

The average value of cattle per head is 25s. ; and of sheep, is. ; cattln for
killing, 51;?. (These balance sheets are taken from The Brpuhlic of Uruguay, General
Statistics, issued by authority of the consulate general of Uruguay. Stanford, Charing
Cross.)

But make no mistake, you wouldn't get that, or indeed anything
at all without working, and working hard for it. Education and
good connections profit you nought here. A man must have
plenty of pluck and plenty of experience before he settles as a

282 CnmSE OF H.US. BACCHANTE. 1880.

sheep farmer. As master he must work a good deal harder than
his men ; sleep on the ground, be able to carpenter and cook, do
any drudgery, and take any sort of food, keep at it with perse-
verance and keen vigilance, live, in fact, as a man with all his
faculties awake both of body and mind, and then, and then only,
will he win. " Civilisation with him will mean," (in Canon
Kingsley's words) — "not more wealth, more finery, more self-
indulgence, nor more aesthetic and artistic luxury — but more
virtue, more knowledge, more self-control, even though he earn
scanty bread by heavy toil/' The contest is a hard one, and many
are not equal to it; the life is solitary, and with all its liberty,
the blue skies and brilliant hopes, there are hard times at starting ;
but at the end of it all you get fourteen per cent, on your capital
invested, with the satisfaction that it is all your own, and that your
character has been strengthened, and that you are more than
fourteen per cent, bettered as a man. Some of the wealthiest
landed proprietors now in the River Plate were either originally
themselves English, Irish, or Scotch settlers, or are the sons and
grandsons of such men.

3. Now take the agriculturist on a small scale : A family can
establish themselves on a patch of land of thirty or forty acres,
and provide themselves with a house, two working oxen, a milch
cow, two carts and the necessary implements, for under 50/. One
year's expenditure (including rent, and ten per cent, interest on
borrowed oOl.) would be about 60/. With fair luck the produce of
the land should yield them a net profit of 18/. or 20/. to add to their
capital. They would raise wheat, maize, potatoes and lucern. In
the neighbourhood of Monte Video it is chiefly immigrants from the
Canary Islands who adopt this method of life, as well as Basques,
and small Italian farmers. The soil is very fertile, and its produce
could be increased to any extent, but at present pasturage is
more remunerative. The poorer classes of European immigrants
(Swiss, Waldenses, Spaniards), often form agricultural settlements
or communities (of four or five thousand in all), with their proper
complement of artisans, mechanics, &c., and with their own chap-
lain ; and as far as local questions are concerned the community
governs itself. It possesses reading-rooms, clubs, musical societies
and rifle associations. Several of these settlements are models of
frugal social comfort, and minister by their existence to the benefit
of the larger state community. They prosper as peasant pro-
prietors by hard work and the sale of their wheat and Indian corn.

1880. AGRICULTURAL SETTLEMENTS. 283

eggs, poultry, potatoes, beans, &c. Such a settlement would occupy
twelve square miles of land, divided into farms of about twenty-six
acres, for which they would pay about 40/. each. Of all systems of
emigration on a large scale it seems as if this method of colonising
by cotnmunities or settlements will eventually prove the most effi-
cient. The Germans have lately started such a settlement on the
banks of the Uruguay. What is wanted in new countries, is
numbers; and men and women with ordinary capacities, and
willingness to work steadily, and remain permanently. In the back
country bordering on Brazil, land may be had cheaper, (at 2s. an acre,)
and is very fertile, while the climate is that of Italy or the South
of France. About one-third of the immigrants that come to
Uruguay are of this agricultural class ; last year about 10,000 in
all arrived, and this has been about the average for the last five
years. Of those that came last year over 4,000 were Italian,
2,500 Spanish, another 1,000 Basques from France, 500 English,
and about the same number German.

The immigrants most needed by Uruguay are agricultural
labourers and female servants. The last are sure of finding employ-
ment. Steady young men of good constitutions and accustomed to
sober, out-door country life, can earn, at the sheep farms, SI, a
month with board and lodging ; and after a short time get a flock
of sheep, with a third of the profits — and so ultimately (if worth
their salt) become independent sheep farmers. The fare third-
class from Liverpool is 12/., and the passage out takes a month.]

Dec. SOth — Started at 9 A.M., and ran down in the special train
(after thanking Mr. Dunster and Mr. Wingate for all they had shown
us at Durazno) to Monte Video, over the same undulating pampas
with here and there low woods and brushwood, cactus hedges
and eucalyptus trees. Half-way down, a fine fox, ofif the pampas,
was handed into the train in his box, which the flag-captiun took
possession of. He accompanied the squadron afterwards to the
Cape, but never renounced his natural habits, and made sad gaps
in the Admiral's hencoops, and occasionally among the marines'
boots. We arrived at Monte Video at 3 P.M., and drove straight to
the Hotel Oriental, where we got our luggage, and went at once
on board the JSlk, which then got under way, and after picking
up from the Bacchante Dr. TumbuU, and from the flagship Prince
Louis of Battenburg, left at 5 P.M. and steamed up the river,
120 miles, to Buenos Aires. Although the River Plate looks a
large estuary on the map, it is not navigable for ships of large

284 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1880.

draught ; and even for those drawing a dozen feet the passage is a
very narrow one, and at Buenos Aires they have to lie out two or
three miles from the town. The deepest water by the pier head
there is only five feet deep. The usual way to land passengers and
goods is to unload them from the ships into small boats, and when
these have rowed in as close, to shore as the shallow water will
allow, their contents are transferred to carts that come alongside.
This method considerably increases the expense attending their
conveyance.

We had intended to have gone across the country from Monte
Video to Colonia (the oldest settlement of the Portuguese, founded
in 1680), partly by train and partly riding, and thus have visited
the Swiss colony, and from Colonia have gone up the Uruguay
river in the gun-vessel to Fraybentos, in order to see Liebig's extract
of meat factory, and to Paysandu for McCall's ox-tongue preserving
establishment. At the first of these places, one hundred cattle are
killed by machinery, skinned and cut up in an hour ; over 1,200 a
day, or over 150,000 a year of five months. This employs 500 men.
Each skinner gets 6d. a head ; at the height of the season a man
can skin thirty-three in a day, and thus earn over 165. But if,
in skinning, he makes a hole in the skin, he loses his payment for
that animal. Eighty vessels during the year are loaded at the
wharves there, for Europe, with the Extract. It is stewed in huge
cauldrons, and packed in large cube tins holding about 110 lbs. ;
each of these tins contains, on an average, the substance of fifteen
animals, and is worth about 50/. On arrival in Europe their
contents are subdivided. Near Monte Video there are nine
saladeros (or salting grounds), and ten on the river Uruguay.

At the present time it is calculated that in the whole of the
country, over a million and a-half of cattle are thus worked up
annually. Of these more than half a million are simply killed for
the tallow and hides they produce for export. The summer is the
season for killing at the saladeros ; oxen, young and in good con-
dition, are then sold at 4/. each (his hide and tallow will fetch half
that sum, and the meat the other half). The different inventions
for facilitating the export of meat, as in tins or chemically prepared,
or in refrigerated chambers, will enormously improve the cattle
industry. Already mutton is exported frozen to England, both
from Colonia and Campana; 1,500 frozen sheep go to one cargo.

We went straight up through the night to Buenos Aires ; it was
fine and calm, and we made a good passage and slept comfortably

1880. MONTE VIDEO TO BUENOS AIRES. 285

on board slung in cots in the after cabin. Captain Clanchy's
ship's company are a healthy-looking lot, as hardy and cheerful as
can be, through being \jpll-fed on the beef of the country and well
seasoned in the sun.

Dec. ^\$t, — The Elk, on account of her Ught draught, is able to
go in almost within a stone' s-throw of the jetty, at which we land
at 10 A.M. Here the British minister, Sir Horace Rumbold, Bart.,
and Mr. Egerton, his secretary, met ns, and took us out at once by
train to Belgrano, a short distance to the north of the town, where
he is staying. The captain, the doctor, and Prince Louis, are put
up at the very pretty quinta of a Belgian gentleman, and in the
midst of a large and shady garden, at a short distance from the
minister s. The village of Belgrano appears to have been laid out
on a more ambitious plan than has at present been executed.
The streets are broad and at right angles to each other, but the
houses at their sides few and far between ; there is a large church,
and other unfinished buildings. After luncheon we ran back into
the town in the train, and first walked to the Museum, which con-
tains some very splendid geological specimens of gigantic sloths
and other extinct animals, dug up from the pampas. We walked
about the town, the streets of which are all at right angles to each
other, at regular distances of about 140 yards apart, and exhibit
every evidence of much wealth and trade. Most of the houses are
of one storey only ; some are of three ; every one is flat-topped and
has a teiTace on the roof, and one or two courts in the middle with
windows looking into them. The population of Buenos Aires
(which is so called firom the healthy and pure air which the prevalent
south-west pampero wind brings from the interior) is just under
300,000, or about half that of Liverpool, and not quite so many as
that of Sheffield. We looked into several of the shops, which are
really very good in this South American Melbourne abotit equal in
size to the Victorian capital. We then went to the Custom House
(which was the old semi-circular fort that Beresford occupied) and
across the Plaza Vittoria, surrounded with very fine public buildings,
and so called in memory of the Argentine victory over the British.
The English flag of the 7lst Highlanders, still bearing marks of
the gallant defence of St. Jean d'Acre against Napoleon, which
was captured when Beresford was driven from this square 12th
August, 1806, is exhibited as a trophy in the church of San
Domingo close by. We then drove with Sir Horace to call on the

286 . CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

President of the Argentine Republic, General Roca, at his country
Jiouse outside the town, and so home to dinner at Belgi*auo, to
which were invited some of the very large number of English who
have settled out hera

Jan. Id, 1881. — New Years Day dawned wet and stormy, with
much thunder and wind. There was to have been a criuket-match
between the officers of the squadron and the English club of resi-
dents at Buenos Aires, but it rained so heavily all the morning that
it was impossible to play. However, towards midday it cleared up
a bit, and so we drove in the President's private carriage, which he
had kindly sent for our use, three miles from Belgrano to Palermo.
This is the name of the park, where there is a long and broad
avenue of palm trees, which were planted by Rosas, whose old
palace, a curious square building, where strange scenes were
enacted during his twenty years* tyranny (1829 to 1852), is
still standing, though now deserted ; and so on by the new
Exhibition buildings, and some pretty plantations artificially laid
out and watered, and which consist of weeping willows, poplars,
and other shrubs, together with the ubiquitous eucalyptus. At
the ground we found a scratch match going on, which adjourned
at two for lunch in the tent, given by the Buenos Aires cricket
club. At 3 P.M. we left in a special train on the Ferro carril del
Sud, which Mr. Cooper, the superintendent of the line, had drawn
up for us close to the cricket ground. The two large saloon
carriages were banded on the outside with the Argentine coloura,
in light blue and white silk ; in the centre of this was a square,
with the English royal arms; in the interior of the carriage the
Prince of Wales's plumes had been illuminated, and there we
found two gun-room friends, Erskine of the Gariut., aud Wemyss
from the Bacchante, who had come up from Monte Video that
morning, waiting for us. The line runs first through the town,
and then over one very long iron bridge by the shore. We
steamed away south over the pampas to Ranches, and to Villa
Nueva, where we arrived after a capital run over the 125 miles
from Buenos Aires at 7 I'.M.

The railway is laid on iron sleepers (the gauge of the line is
5' 6", the English narrow gauge being 4' 8^"), and is fenced in in
parts with iron wire fencing, run through posts of a wood that is
incorruptible in the black earth. The pampas on the southern
side of the Plate are much flatter than those we saw on the
Uruguayan ot northern side ; the general eflfcct of the landscajie is

1881. BUENOS AIRES TO VILLA NUEVA. 287

similar to that in passing over the Cambridgeshire fens, going
down to Sandringham, though, of course, there are no Cambridge-
shire dykes. We passed flocks of emus, and ostriches, and sheep,
and herds of cattle and horses ranging, apparently wild, over the
grassy and nearly treeless plain. The wire fences extend but a
short distance, and most of the way there is nothing to prevent
the animals coming on the line. Each engine has a huge pro-
jection in front called a " cow-catcher," which shovels and thrusts
away from the train any stray animals who may chance to have
so far forgotten themselves as to have wandered on to " the way,"
or fallen asleep upon it Most of us took turns in riding upon
this projection, where it was very cool and pleasant to meet the
air. The rain that had fallen in the morning had completely laid
the dust, which at other times, rising from the dry black soil, is
very troublesome to the traveller ; this, however, as the grass grows
over the line, will much diminish. The railway is to be pushed on
to Bahia Blanca (444 miles from Bueiios Aires), and ultimately
to San Jose, the best harbour on the Patagonian coast. The
ironclads which the Argentines are purchasing in Europe cannot
get up the Plate to Buenos Aires, but either of these ports they
could enter, and if it be necessary for them to establish a naval
depot it could be done there ; but as ports for trade they both lie
too far to the south, and away from the main river arteries.
Railways on this flat country can be constructed at a comparatively
small outlay. The 350 miles belonging to this company were laid
at a cost of less than three millions sterling. The ordinary stock
pays this year eleven per cent. It was built and is managed by
an English company ; so also is the Eastern Argentine railway and
the submarine telegraph between Monte Video and Buenos Aires.
All the Argentine State loans have been negotiated in London,
and in the public and private undertakings more millions of English
money are invested in the Argentine country than those found by
all other investors put together. Railways, besides being here
great civilisers, vastly improve the value of the land through which
they run, on account of the facilities thus afforded for the convey-
ance of the hides and wool from the interior to the capital. At
Las Flores and other stations, we saw a number of bullock
waggons from which the wheels are removed for them to be
placed bodily on railway trucks for transport, as the wool is said
to travel best when thus packed ; they are constructed entirely of
hides belted over and bulging out at each end. On either side of

288 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

the railway there is a course of telegraph wires ; those on one side
belong to the Government, and those on the other to the Company.

Mr. Shennan (of whom we had heard so much when in the
Britannia from Captain Fairfax, who had visited him here when
senior officer on the South American station he had had command
of H.M.S. Volage), with Mr. St. John was waiting at the Villa
Nueva station with two waggonettes, one of them a four-in-hand,
to drive us to the estancia Negrete, eight miles off. Right away
over the springy turf, as through an interminable field, we drive ;
to the inexperienced eye there seem no marks by which to tell the
road, but here and there in the distance are little clumps of trees
and other landmarks, which are known well to the estanciero.
The last part of our drive was by starlight ; we saw the bizcachos
(like large hares), each with his attendant owl, coming out in the
dusk to sit beside his hole. They sleep by day, and make their
appearance towards sunset ; at first they sit by the mouths of their
burrows, looking sleepy and drowsy, but after a bit become lively
and active enough. They live in families like rabbits. Their
bodies are two feet long, covered with grey fur, ears short, eyes
large and black, faces a mixture of badger and guinea-pig, tails
sometimes a foot long like beavers, only ending in a tuft of black
hair. They have also black whiskers, and four long sharp gnawing
teeth. There were also numbers of the tero-teros, a sort of large
brown plover, only with a horn or spur at the tip of each wing.
They rose circling and uttering their melancholy note. We
arrived at Negrete at 8.30 P.M., suddenly coming upon this large
European house in the midst of its plantations, right out in the
middle of the pampas. After dinner turned in rather tired.

Jan, 2nd. — Early this morning we went out into the garden, and
found to what a pretty house we had come, for it was too dark last
night to see anything of the grounds. It is only one story high,
and is entered from a pillared portico on the exterior, and arranged
like all houses out here, round a blue-tiled courtyard with a
well in the Iniddle, with iron framework for bucket over it. The
water drawn from this well is deliciously cool, and similar water
may be drawn anywhere " in Camp," (i.e. " in the country," as con-
trasted with the town) by sinking wells for about four feet below
the surface. About the courtyard are many plants and shrubs, and
on to it the bedrooms open. The garden has a fine lawn surrounded
by eucalyptus or gum-trees, which seem to f3ourish everywhere here,
and by willow, Scotch lir, poplar and acacia. There are beds of

1881. ESTANCIA NEGRETI. 289

English flowers, scarlet and variegated geraniums, heliotrope,
lovely roses of all sorts, and rows of scarlet gladiolus. In the
kitchen garden were apple and pear trees, gooseberries and
currants, and plenty of English vegetables of every kind. After
breakfast we sat quietly under a tree in the sunshine, observing
the birds and insects. First came the brown oven-bird, a sort of
pigeon, which builds its nest, of what is apparently mud, at the
corners of the eaves of the house : in the interior of each of them
there is a division down the middle. Then came a large sort of
wasp with huge wings, a formidable-looking creature, like the Jack
Spaniards at Trinidad, but he doesn't come much into the house :
there were multitudes of ants too, black and brown, as industrious
as usual, but larger than those in England. Of the birds that were
singing, one fellow, called ben-te-veo (" I see you,") from the note
he constantly utters, is said to be the same as our Trinidad friend
qui ^teS'VOus, and just as vociferous. At noon we read the Sunday
church service, in the drawing-room ; where all the furniture is
English, and where there is a nice little library of English books ;
and afterwards went for a drive, in two waggonettes, a little way
over the pampas, to a 'rodeo' of 400 horses. These consisted of
three herds of mares, with one stallion to each herd, who marshals
his ladies and never lets them stray. They were driven into the
'rodeo' (or enclosure), from three difierent directions, by the
gauchos ; the head one of these was in a Zouave-like suit of black
cloth ; his broad leathern belt was completely covered with large
silver coins, and the scabbard in which he carried his cutlass knife
was one mass of silver ; the bridle of his horse was silver and leather
twisted together, all his horse-trappings were silver mounted,
and beneath his stirrups there was a sort of hollow, cup-shaped
appendage, turned topsy-turvy, also of silver. He was a fine,
stalwart, grey-bearded old fellow, and had been in Mr. Shennan's
service for very many years. We saw several colts lassoed out
of this herd, which up till to-day had wandered wild on the
pampas, and then, for the first time, saddled and mounted. The
first taken in hand allowed himself to be mounted at once without
much trouble. The gauchos sawed his mouth with the bit at
first, and then rode off full gallop between two other mounted
gauchos, whose trained steeds kept close alongside the other.
The second colt that was lassoed occasioned more trouble than the
first, and buck-jumped a good deal ; however, he had to give in,
for he had found his master. The tails of the mares, some of
VOL. I. u

290 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

them, were like huge clubs, hard and stiff; we cut off a few as a
relief to the animals. The hairs of the tail become completely
matted and hardened together by means of ' devil's horns/ which
are a kind of seed-pod, each side of which terminates in a large
hook about three inches in diameter. These pods accumulate on
the tails of the horses as they wander over the pampas. Driving
home we stopped to examine the native way of drawing water.
Over a tank-like well is suspended, from two crossed sticks, a large
wooden scoop-ladle, with a square funnel-shaped handle, which,
when tilted up, allows the water to run backwards through itself,
and so down into the troughs outside for the cattle. In the well
there was a green toad very aged, fat, and large. Then home to
lunch. At 4 P.M. we went in another direction over the pampas,
some of the party on ponies and the rest in a waggonette. Our
course lay through myriads of tall thistles (which cover the ground
for acres in some places and are one of the greatest nuisances of the
settler), to a cattle rodeo, where there were 3,000 cattle, the largest
number that had ever been driven together into one enclosure. A
few gauchos rode after them, but no other living thing was visible
for miles. It was a fine sight, like an English cattle fair, only that
the animals seemed to have more character in their heads, and to
be larger and stronger, though not so stout. Several of them were
lassoed and bolassed. The lasso is thrown over the animal's horns,
or the bolas round their fore or hind legs. The captured animal, in
each case, falls on its side. The man who throws the lasso prepares
himself, and his horse, for the shock which he will receive when
thus brought up sharp. One of our officers tried to throw the
bolas as he was galloping about on his steed, but he got them
entangled all round the legs of his own horse and his own body,
and nearly came to grief; it looks easy enough to throw, but
requires much practice. We had thus a very pleasant day, spent
quite unrestrainedly in the country. The tero-tero rose shrieking
on every side ; the prairie owls and the brown pigeon, which utters
a cry like, but not the same, as hen-te-veo, alone enlivened the scene,
and the only drawback was the flies, which swarmed everywhere.

Jan. Srd. — After an early breakfast we started — most riding on
ponies, and the rest in a waggonette — for a progress over the pampas
to a lagoon, fifteen miles off, to shoot wildfowl. The warm, dry,
light, fresh air of the pampas with the scent of the wild flowers,
with which the grass was full, rendered the drive most enjoyable.
The three different sorts of wild verbena, scarlet, white, and lilac.

1881. OVER THE PAMPAS. 291

and a few yellow flowers, were the chief kinds that we noticed. In
some parts were tussocks of pampas grass ; the rest was springy tuif
or else tall thistles, which are said to be a sign of fertile land. We
passed here and there skeletons of dead horses and cows left to rot
on the pampas. It is said to be a not uncommon crime to kill a
bullock and steal the best parts of its hide and flesh, and then make
believe that the animal died from natural causes. We arrived at
the lagoon, or salt marsh, and saw multitudes of white wild swans,
with black tips to their wings ; flamingoes, ibises (of two kinds, the
smaller of dark glossy green, the other, four times his size, green
and brown mixed) ; sandpipers, wild duck of many sorts, teal and
herons, which literally blackened the sky. The rose-coloured
flamingoes looked very pretty : their bill is four inches long, their
body about one foot and a-half, and their legs a little over a foot.
The shooters waded into the water and to the reed-beds in the
centre, from which the birds were rising, and those of our number
who were not shooting rode in on horseback on the opposite side
to beat them up. We shot a large turkey-buzzard or crested
screamer ; his plumage was slatey, and he had two talons or spurs
on each of his wings, one at the tip joint, large and very strong, the
other smaller and lower down the wing. Chaja is the native name
of the bird ; he had a black ring round the neck, his legs were
bright red. At four o'clock we drove back to Negreti, which is
visible, with its clump of trees, twelve miles off. Two gaucho out-
riders, in their ponchos, trimmed with mauve braid bands, galloped
along at the side. So to lunch, to which we all did full justice.
After that there was a game of polo; on one side were Mr. Shennan
(il Patrone), George, Prince Louis, Mr. Cooper ; and on the other
side were Mr. St. John, the captain, Eddy, and Osborne. Six games
were played ; of these the first three were won by the latter (the
Bacchantes, as they called themselves), and the last three by the
other side. The ponies were well trained, and the game is often
played here, and makes an agreeable variety in the * camp ' life,
which is said to be monotonous, owing to the want of neighbours.

Jan. ^th, — All we youngsters went off in a trap at 8 A.M. to
another lagoon for some more wildfowl shooting, and the others had
their last ride over the pampas ; but we first went over the farm
buildings, and saw, especially, some fine specimens of the Negreti
breed of sheep, which is striped, and was introduced by Mr.
Hannah, Mr. Shennan*s predecessor, from Spain. The breed was
the exclusive property of the King of Spain, who sent the first

u 2

292 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

ram and ewes straight from his own farm. It has been much
improved, however, by skilful crossing with English Leicesters
since it left his hands. The estancia itself is, in fact, called after
the breed, and not the breed after the place. On this estancia,
which is eighteen miles square (where Mr. Shennan has been ten
years) there are 35,000 sheep, 10,000 cattle, and 800 horses. A
square league (three miles) of land of fair quality will carry 2,500
head of cattle or horses, and 10,000 sheep, giving fleeces weighing
on an average 6 lbs., but not unfrequentiy as much as 18 lbs.
But the wool LS often deteriorated by the curious persistency
with which the seeds of a kind of clover cling to it. We are told
that the best land in Australia will only carry one-sixth of what
the best land in this province can, and is about on a par with
the lightest and poorest here.^ The chief drawback here is the
frequent occurrence of droughts. The evil can be met by digging
wells served by horse-pumps. Last drought Mr. Shennan lost only
150 animals, because his estate is all carefully fenced and divided off
into paddocks. Water abounds at depths of from ten to fifteen feet,
and in carefully managed estates a well is sunk in each paddock
with a horse-pump to fill the tanks, which is done morning and
evening when necessary. No man can do anything without thus
fencing his 'camp,' and to do so costs from 40Z. to 50Z. per
mile. These plains, with their free, open, boundless expanse, and
their brisk, healthy air, will long dwell in our memories. One
might imagine at first, that a huge expanse of grass, all at a dead
level, could not exert any power over the mind and imagination,
yet it certainly does, somehow, with its herds and birds and wild
flowers, and we were all very sorry when it was time to go to the
train. Before this, however, we walked round the grounds near
the house, and groves, and paddocks, enclosed by plantations. We
went to the gum-trees to try and find an opossum, but if the
opossum was there he was not to be caught. We visited the little
cemetery, which lies within old red-brick walls in one comer of the

* Fairly good land, to the west, south of Buenos Aires and within ninety miles of
the capital, is worth 255. an acre. Further away and dowii to Bahia Blanca, land is
worth 5s. an acre. Mr. Shennan had bought three other estates further south near
Bahia Blanca, forty-five square miles (fifteen square leagues) in all. South of
Bahia Blanca the Government is selling the land at 7 id. an acre. It is being rapidly
bought up, for the railway will soon enhance the value. Tussocky grass beyond
Bahia Blanca covers the plains right down to the Straits of Magellan. Napp, The
Argentine Hepublic, 1876, with elaborate statistics, makes out (p. 808) that at the
lowest estimate the gain on capital invested in estancias in the province of Buenos
Aires is 20 per cent., and often more than 36 per cent. But if there are some who
by pluck and good luck make this, there are otners who are ruined over the business.

1881. BACK TO BUENOS AIRES. 293

paddock and is overshadowed by trees. Three graves stand here
side by side ; the first, that of the doctor, who married the lady
heiress of the estate ; the next, that of her second husband (the
doctor s executor), who died of yellow fever three months after
his marriage ; the third, that of the lady herself and her third
husband, who was the first love of her youth, and who happened
to be also a widower at the time when his old lady love required
his services. There are a few gaucho graves also in the enclosure.
After lunch we drove back to the station, and left at 8 P.M. by
train for Buenos Aires. After a very good, though dusty run,
we arrived at Belgrano at 6.30 p.m. Dined quietly, and afterwards
went to the ball given by the British residents to the Admiral and
oflScers of the squadron, at the Opera House. Mr. Carlyle was
president of the committee. This was really a very beautiful
spectacle. The whole of the house, both the pit and behind the
scenes, was floored in at one level, for dancing; in the centre,
where the drop-scene would be, was a screen of huge mirrors, which
thus divided the house practically into two ball-rooms, and the
band played in a sort of balcony above these mirrors. Supper was
laid out in another large room up stairs. Many ladies sat in the
boxes looking on at the dancing. The amount of flowers that
were used in decorating various parts of the house must have been
enormous, and most of them were sent as presents from private
gardens. A great number of officers from the squadron were there,
as the committee had chartered a special steamer to bring them
up the river from Monte Video, and besides, were most hospitable
in putting them up during their stay in Buenos Aires. The cost
of the ball itself was over 2,000/., and there were about 800 people
present. The President and his Ministers came, and when they
entered, the Argentine national air was played ; this is rather a
weird and strange medley, with a loud clanging sort of chorus, but
the general effect is fine and rousing at any rate ; the music is in
unison for several of the bars, and reverts to the original air in
harmony. We left the ball at 2 A.M.

Jan. 5th, — After breakfast we went into Buenos Aires by train
from Belgrano, and walked first to the Stranger s Club, a comfort-
able, cosy, and cool house. We went to several shops, amongst
the rest to see the beautiful furs and ponchos, or riding cloaks,
woven from the dark or creamy-brown hair of the vicuna or lama ;
they are very light and fine, and impenetrable by rain. At 3 P.M.
we went on board the Flk, which was lying off the jetty ; it was a

294 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

calm, fine night, with just a little wind from the south-east, which
died away at sunset. We slept on board in the same manner
as we had done coming up the river. The rest of the officers
who had come up from the squadron returned in the Silex, which
started at 6 P.M. So ended our most pleasant voyage up the River
Plate. According to the original programme we were to have
visited Rosario in the JBfk from Campana, and then gone on to
Cordova by train, to see the Jesuit Seminary, and Jesu Maria, and
the Observatory. This, owing to want of time, had to be given
up. But our visit to ' the Camp ' and Buenos Aires will not soon
be forgotten. The Minister has been most kind, attentive, and
hospitable ; and the President has shown every civility and wished
to do a great deal more ; he sent us this morning a fine present of
furs of the country through the Minister ; and the warm-hearted-
ness and sincere geniality of the British residents have been
displayed unceasingly during our stay.

[No part of South America has advanced so fast within the
last twenty years as the River Plate. The Argentine Republic
in the South penetrates Antarctic regions, and in the North
stretches into sub- tropical lands and perpetual summer, but its
central and larger portion is in the temperate zone, with an
area ten times that of Great Britain and Ireland, or as large
as the whole of Europe without Russia. Half is occupied by
Indian tribes, but it is calculated that it would besides these
support a population of 300,000,000. At present it contains scarcely
3,000,000 ; but over 60,000 quiet, hardworking frugal settlers, the
greater number from Italy or Spain, are now coming in every year.
This is at about the same rate that folk are pouring into Australia ;
as the present Argentine population is about equal to that of
Australia, it will be interesting in the future to watch the develop-
ment of these two rival queens of the southern hemisphere. At the
end of 1882 there were in the fourteen provinces of the Argentine
Federal States over 14,000,000 homed cattle, nearly 73,000,000
sheep, and 5,000,000 horses : in the five provinces of Australia there
were at the same period about half that number of horned cattle,
about 61,000,000 sheep, and a little over 1,000,000 horses. So if the
statistics are correct, the Argentines have the start of the Australians
in live stock. As far as trade goes, 95 per cent, of the total exports
of the Argentines consist of wool, hides, tallow, horns, and bones;
and the imports are chiefly manufactured cotton goods, coal and
iron. All foreign merchandize pays 20 per cent, ad valorem duty

1881. THE FEDERAL STATES OF THE PLATE. 295

on entrance, wines and hardware 40 per cent., grocery 30 per cent.,
iron 10 per cent. The imports have more than doubled in the
last four years, and in 1883 amounted to over 16,000,000/. sterling,
about one-third of which came from Great Britain. The imports
of Victoria alone in 1883 were over 17,000,000/., and those of the
five provinces of Australia amounted in value to more than
51,000,000/., or more than three times as much as those of the
Argentines. The exports in value amounted to over 12,000,000/.,
considerably less than the value of the exports of either Victoria
or New South Wales, or about one-fourth that of Australia as
a whole. For wealth then they can scarcely compare. The
Argentine public debt at the end of 1883 was over 45,000,000/.
sterling, more than twice that of New South Wales, but only half
that of Australia : the Argentine has to pay over 7 per cent., the
Australian only 4 or 3^ per cent, on capital borrowed, and whereas
the latter has been invested in re-productive works which for the
most part already pay to the Colonial Governments a higher interest
than they themselves pay on borrowed capital, that of the Argen-
tines has been in great measure hopelessly sunk on their former
squabbles and the army and navy expenses of the past, although
now much is being spent also in improving the condition of the
country. The total Argentine revenue is a trifle over 9,000,000/.
sterling per annum, and is raised almost entirely from customs dues
from land sales and postage ; most years there is a deficit, and the
principal item of expenditure is interest on the public debt. The
total revenue of Australia is double that of the Argentines.

The Federal constitution very nearly resembles that of the
United States. The legislative authority is vested in a National
Congress consisting of a Senate and a House of Deputies. There
are twenty-eight senators, two from each province, elected by the
provincial legislatures from those who have been six years citizens ;
they sit for nine years, one-third being renewed every three years ;
and there are eighty-six deputies, one for every 20,000 inhabitants ;
they are elected for four years, and one-half must retire every two
years ; each must have been a citizen for four years before election.
Senators and Deputies each receive 700/. a year. The executive
power is left to the President, elected for six years by representatives
of the fourteen provinces, equal to double the number of senators
and deputies combined. He is commander-in-chief, and appoints to
all civil, military, and judicial offices by and with the advice of the
Senate, and to bishoprics. He has five ministers (Home, Foreign

396 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

aflfairs, War, Finance, and Justice) appointed by himself; they may
not be senators or deputies, they can take part in the debates of
either House but have no vote ; each receives 1,800/. a year,
while the President has a salary of 4,000/. There is absolute
freedom of the press and of worship.

Each of the fourteen Provinces has also its own local legislature ;
they make and alter their own constitution and have complete
control over their own local matters — education, justice, railways,
canals, industries, and all municipal laws — just as each of the States
of America have, and each of our own colonial provinces in Canada
and Australasia. The people of each province elect their own
provincial governors, who possess very extensive powers, for three
years. The fourteen capitals of the fourteen separate provinces
of the Argentine Confederation are in course of being connected .
by a network of railways, and as the railways are made colonis-
ation as steadily follows them. (The length open for traffic is
2,500 miles, or more than half as much as is opened for traffic
in Australia.) And it is to be hoped that the jealousies between the
other provincials and Buenos Aires (the richest and most populous
of the fourteen provinces), though natural enough at first, will now
cease, and that her citizens will be reconciled to take their part
as occupants of what must always be the capital of this vast and
fast-growing nation, and to share the growing powers with the
others, and not lord it over them as supreme. The new capital
for the province of Buenos Aires has been fixed at La Plata
(as Ensenada has been re-christened), thirty miles further south,
in the best position on the river for shipping, where vessels will bo
able to lie alongside the wharves, aod load and unload direct. A
system of small agricultural settlements similar to that we had seen
in Uruguay has been introduced, in which the lands are allotted
by the State to immigrants, who are grouped together in villages.
Each adult immigrant has eighty acres of land apportioned to him,
which are so laid out that all the land of the village may be
cultivated on the same system. It is stated, that as soon as an
emigrant ship arrives in the Boads she is boarded by an Argentine
Government agent ; that all immigrants are conveyed ashore free to
a Central Intelligence Office, where they have free board and lodging
for themselves and families for eight days, and afterwards a free
paid passage to any point in the Argentine territory they may
select ; that they are free from all taxes for ten years. 250 acres
of land are allotted to each of 100 families that come prepared to

1881. THE FEDERAL STATES OF THE PLATE. 297

take part in a village settlement. This land is sold by the Govern-
ment at four shillings the acre, payable in ten annual instalments
commencing in the third year after purchase. No interest is
charged. For the first year the Government advance food, a
plough, two working cattle, seeds, and hut. Unlike the forests of
North America, there is no labour and outlay in clearing the land ;
and in three years the labourer has generally repaid everything.
An Argentine 'colony,' as these villages are called, very much
resembles the primitive country townships which were once com-
mon in England, there being a large scattered township with a
common pasture and several very large fields, one of which is sown
with maize, another with wheat, another with barley, and
another with grass seeds. And in some parts the growth of flax
has been introduced with success. In the village there is a church
and school. The colonists of each village are generally of the
same nation and religion ; one may consist of Swiss Calvinists,
the next of Welsh Wesleyans, and the next of Italian Catholics.
The Chilians, too, from their narrow and much over-populated
country, send forth a stream of immigrants hither which, when the
railway is opened over the Andes, will be still further increased.
In addition, many people of some capital, among whom the Irish
and Scotch predominate, have become estancieros; and besides
horses and cattle, the breeding of sheep has been introduced so
largely that the Argentine provinces rival Australia itself in
the production of wool. The province of Buenos Aires contains
45,000,000 of sheep (two-thirds of those in the republic), and
exports 150,000,000 lbs. of wool a year. In different parts of the
provinces further north, and where the temperate climate, which
prevails over the whole of the central and southern parts and
favours the normal activity of our British race, passes into the
sub-tropical ; there sugar, cotton, tobacco, rice, coffee and indigo,
are obtained. Lastly, the Argentine territory includes thousands
of square miles of metalliferous mountains; so that it has every
possible element of prosperity. If Whitelock had not been so
weak, Buenos Aires and Monte Video at least, if not the whole
of the Plate, would still be English, and would have been a nucleus
for another Australia ; and the republics of South America would
perhaps under the leadership of the Anglo-Saxon race have made
more steady progress than they have hitherto made by them-
selves. It is not for the sake so much of Great Britain as for
that of this country and continent and people that we regret the

298 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

missed opportunity and great possibilities thrown away. The
descendants of the Spaniards in the Plate regions would have in
all probability become as enthusiastic and loyal British subjects as
those we found in Trinidad, and when they had tasted the bless-
ings of British order, rule, and administration, they would have
deprecated being left as a native republic, just as much as the
Trinidad Spaniards did the proposal that they should be given
independence like the neighbouring republic of Venezuela (p. 81).
The comparison of the Argentine Confederation with Australia
teaches us this much at any rate, that though the first has as
fine a country, if not a finer, than the latter, and more wealth in
the shape of flocks and herds upon it, yet after eighty years of
independence and self rule they have only now begun to lay the
foundations of an orderly and progressive liberty, and are far behind
what they might have been, if they had had the guiding hand of
the English from 1806 to the present time. When we regard the
present of Australia after barely forty years of existence, we may
form some notion what a development the Plate countries would
Lave now attained, with their immense extent and natural facility
for every species of colonisation, and their comparatively mild
climate. It is, however, bootless to regret the past; in the
future all that is required for their stable development is that
there should be a truce to all petty and local jealousies, and that
those in authority should keep their hands clean from peculation.
Every Englishman landing on the soil enjoys all the rights of a
citizen of the Argentine Republic; at the end of two yeara'
residence he may be naturalised, and after another four years may
become a member or representative for the province in which he
resides ; let these but do their duty for their new country, and as
they increase in numbers and rise in influence, and take part in its
active government, all will be well. What is wanted for the
progress of the country is immigration, always more immigration —
especially of agriculturists.]

Jan, 6th. — We sighted the squadron at 7 a.m. At 8.30 A.M.
arrived alongside and went on board the Bacchante at once ; shifted
clothes and went in to school. We are all as red as boiled lobsters,
the wind and the sun having caught all our faces very much while
we have been in Camp. The Admiral inspected the Tourmaline
yesterday, and is inspecting the Garys/ort to-day. Ashore there
is a cricket-match going on between the officers of the detached
squadron and the English residents at Monte Video. Squadron

1881. BACK TO MONTE VIDEO. 299

beat in the first iDnings (having got 82 runs against their 65), and
were doing still better in the second innings (having scored 127
runs) when time was called. A fine calm day, with a pleasant
cool breeze from the south-east, and the thermometer at 69°.

Jan, 7th. — Drill and school all the morning. Le Marchant, bur
new sub-lieutenant, joined from the Forward this morning. In
the afternoon the Admiral gave a dance on board the flagship,
which was very jolly. It came on to blow towards the close of the
proceedings, which made it rather awkward for the ladies getting
down the ladder and oflF to the Swallow, which took them ashore.

Jan. 8th. — We had a little cricket-match of our own to-day, the
Bacchante against the South American squadron (Garnet, Swallow,
Elk, and Forward) ; in the first innings they scored 55 runs, and in the
second 20 ; the Bacchante scored 62 in the first innings, and in the
second got 15 and five wickets to fall. A very hot day, 8^ in the sun ;
but it is midsummer here though winter in England. Big cake in
the gun-room, as it is Eddy's birthday, who is seventeen years old.

Jan. 9th. — At 5.30 A.M. got up steam for six knots, but did not
weigh till 9 A.M., as we waited for some deserters who are being
brought back down the river. When they arrived the nondescript
dress they were wearing in order to pass as gauchos did not become
them near so well as their bluejacket uniform. There is a regular
trade carried on here by a few rascals on shore, who induce seamen
to desert from the Queen's service when the worse for liquor, and
then hand them over to some foreign merchant service if a ship
happens to be sailing handy, and if not, they then betray the men
by taking the reward offered by the service for their apprehension,
and thus manage to get a double picking out of the geese ; the
reward, of course, being deducted out of the man's pay after he
rejoins. The Admiral has formed the squadron, now six ships, into
two columns, and the Garnet, Captain Loftus Jones (who was very
anxious to accompany the squadron as far as the Falkland Islands)
is now leading the lee-line in our old place, and we are therefore
astern of the Inconstant. The Bacchante's length makes her rather
unhandy, and she takes longer than a shorter ship to get her head
off the wind ; so this is a more difficult station for us to keep.
Had church as usual at 10.30 A.M. on the main deck. Fine
day, glad to be at sea again.

Jan. 10th. — Steaming along at five knots. In the afternoon
saw some seals raising their dog-like heads out of the water, and
one pair actually kissing each other. They are curious-looking

300

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE

1881

creatures, and evidently inquisitive. It is much colder to-day
(65") ; it began to rain in the afternoon, and w6nt on a nasty slow
downpour for the rest of the evening ; not much wind.

MONTE VIDEO TO THE FALKLANDS.

Jan, 11th. — Stopped steaming at 4 a.m., up screw at 5.15 A.M.,
made sail to a very light breeze from the north-east. We made
one or two knots an hour all the forenoon, but got into a thick fog
at 11 A.M., which lasted till 2.30 P.M., when the sun came out bright,
though it is getting much colder, with the thermometer 60^ The
Bacchante is sailing pretty well to-day, perhaps because all her boilers
are full, and thus bring her down a little by the head. Passed a
number of birds floating on the water. At 4 P.M. a light breeze
sprang up from the north-west, and we got five knots out of the
old ship. In the evening, after drill (which to-night was shifting
courses, which we did in six minutes shorter time than any other
sliip), it came on squally, and so continued all through the night.
The passage between Monte Video and the Falklands is usually
made by keeping in close to the coast under Cape Corrientes, in
order to avoid the strong south-westerly winds that are said to
prevail further out; the last Flying Squadron, however, while
making the outer passage found north-westerly winds prevailing ;
perhaps we may do so too. At any rate we are keeping well out.

Jan. 12th. — At 3 A.M. very heavy squalls from the south-west ;
during the middle watch we have already taken in two reefs of

1881.

RIVER PLATE TO THE FALKLAND ISLANDS.

30J

MONTE VIDEO TO THE FALKLANDS.

From Previous Noon.

At Nuom.

Temperature

Date.

Cotme.

Distance.

Lat.

Long.

Soa.

Air.

Sid].

Steam.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.

tfP.M

Jan.

9S.

N.E. 8-4, 35-3
N.W.toW.31

56 -56

S. 25 E.

128

S.E. 4-7,
variable 1 2

36-59

54-49

S. 4 W.

E. 2-3, N.E.
3-4, E. 1-2

...

54-49

S. 6E.

114

... S.E.3-4,N.&
' N.W. 2-8

40-33

54-43

S. 4 W.

... N.W.8,W.by

41-58

54-42

S. 3 -6,8.^.7 -6

S. 22 E.

... S.W. 7-8,
W.S.W. 6-7

43 -8

6416

S. 78 E.

W.S.W. 6-7,
S.W. 7-8

43-16

62-63

16 S., N. 50 W.

109

S.W.byS.7-8,
S.W; 7-4

42-6

64-46

17 t S. 39 W.

168

N.W. 7-8, W.
toW.byN.10-7

4112

67-6

18 i S. 34 E.

...

S.W. 7-9, S.
7-6

44-69

66-23

19 S. 8 E.

S.W. 6-7

45-52

6619

20 S. 34 W.

S.W. 7-8

46-20

56-67

21 S. 26 K.

S.W. 8-9

47-5

56-9

22 S. 80 W.

S.toW.S.W.
8 -3 -6

4714

57 27

23S. S. 15 W.

158

W.S.W. 6-4

58-30

24 '

39 1 W.S.W. 4-6,
1 S.E. 2-3

...

'1185

198

Total distance..

.... 13

83 miles. '

the topsails. It is quite light now at 4 A.M., and bitterly cold when
the mids turn out for drill at 6 A.M. (thermometer SS""). At 7.30
A.M. shook out the two reefs, but at 9 a.m. took them in again to a
very heavy squall. The Admiral made the signal to " chase to wind-
ward ; " we were close-hauled and soon dropped astern, the Garnet
leading. There is a heavy swell coming up from the west, but the
sun is bright. Saw many large albatross on the water, who are
said to be unable to rise from the deck of a ship, and can only do
so from the top of a wave ; also many Cape pigeons in their
summer plumage, brown backs and white breasts ; with these were
lots of Mother Carey*s chickens. Shook out reefs at 11 A.M., and
so continued till after evening quarters, when we were first ship

302

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE,

1881.

again at shifting courses. The squadron was then put under
treble-reefed topsails for the night.

Jan, 13th. — Very cold and squally all the morning. At 9.30 A.M.
wore ship, and again after the dinner hour. All the forenoon under
treble-reefed topsails, and we are much to leeward of all the ships.
We tried to catch some albatross after evening quarters, and hooked
three but could not haul them in, so the old birds got away.

Jan. 14}th. — Very cold. At sunrise there was a greasy-looking
bank of clouds in the west with a rainbow. Continued squally all
the forenoon but still bright, though sleet and rain fell at intervals.
At noon to-day we are just the same distance from the Falklands
as we were yesterday, 52:5 miles. We are sailing right away to the

BRATINQ TO WINDWAAD. " OARNET " LBADIMO.

eastward, hoping for a shift of wind, and that it will draw round
to the southward, otherwise we shall probably have to make a
long leg on the port tack to the northward, in order to get to the
westward of the Falklands again. Thermometer 50°, and the
barometer falling. It was a windy sunset ; in the first watch the
squalls were not so hard, and we thought that the wind might
change to south and south-east, and once, for a short time only, it
did blow from the south.

Jan. 15th. — Chilly, cloudy morning. At 6.10 A.M. shook out a
reef; at 8 a.m. reefed again, and at 9.30 A.M. out third reef and wore
ship. The Admiral then made signal to '* chase to windward.*'

1881. MONTE VIDEO TO THE FALKLANDS. 303

The noon position shows us to-day 120 miles to the east of our
noon pasition yesterday, whereas we wanted to go westward ; the
current has set us thirty-nine miles in twenty-four hours, and we
are no nearer the Falklands after all our labour. The wind is
steadier at midday, so the reefs are shaken out again, and we make
plain sail, and are then lying about west-north-west, heading up
for the Plate. Squally in the afternoon ; took in one reef of the
topsails. After evening quarters, to keep ourselves warm, we had a
good game of "duckstones" on the quarter deck.

Jan, \^th. — Very squally night, but towards morning the
weather became much finer, the wind having drawn somewhat to
the north, and it begins to feel warmer. At 10.30 wore just
before church, which we had afterwards on the main deck, and
after church made plain sail, and passing close to the Oamet ran
ahead of the other ships. We all took up our appointed stations
after evening quarters. At noon to-day we are just where we
were three days ago, and forty-five miles further oflf our destina-
tion than we were yesterday. It is rather disheartening, but
" capital training for young seamen." When close-hauled, under
plain sail, less royals, with the average strength of the wind five to
six, we go along with a steady heel from 10° to 15^ After sunset
the wind is increasing in force, though the moon comes out bright
and clear.

Jan. nth. — At 3 a.m. took in the third reef of the topsails, and
soon after sunrise the weather came on thick with thunder and
much lightning and rain. At half-past six close-reefed to a heavy
squall from the north-west, which brought oflf a strong scent of
the shore, and burnt grass of the pampas, although they are over
400 miles distant. The force of the wind is now eight to ten, a
heavy sea is running and we are rolling a bit. After the squall
the wind shifted from the north-west to the south-west again, and
the afternoon was bright. We caught an albatross this afternoon,
measuring nine feet nine inches across the wings ; he was a small
one, we saw some much larger. It is very cold to-night. At noon
we were 439 miles from Cape Carysfort in the Falklands.

Jan, l^th. — ^At 10 A.M. wore ship, and shook out two reefs,
and after the dinner-hour wore again. The wind has fallen a bit,
and the sea, as we are not far from land and the wind is off shore,
seems to go down pretty quickly. At 3 p.m. tacked and shook out
another reef. We had another good game of duckstones to keep
us warm. The Bacchante has got far to leeward of the Inconstant as

304 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

the flagship holds a better wind than the other ships of the squadron,
although the Garnet sticks to her pretty close. At 6.30 P.M. wore
again, being unable to tack. In the first watch we shook out
the remaining reef, and made plain sail to a nice little breeze,
though still very cold, as the south-west wind is coming to us
straight up from the south pole ; if it is like this at midsummer,
what must it be in the winter ! We have been reading the account
of Lord Anson's doubling the Horn.

Jan. 19th. — We turned out for our usual gymnastics, but it was
pouring with rain. It cleared up at about 8 A.M. At noon we
are 328 miles from Cape Carysfort, and still heading south-east.
Wore ship at 6 P.M. Just before sunset a quantity of smoke, as of
a ship on fire, was seen on the horizon to windward of us, and the
Garnet beat up to it and found that it was a whaler boiling her
blubber on deck. We have been under double-reefed topsails the
best part of the day, as it is still very squally.

We can't help feeling wonder at the invisible force of the wind

and a sense of mystery about its persistent antagonism to us thus

day after day :

" 0 wind, a-blowing all day long,
O wind, that sings so loud a song.
O you that are so strong and cold,
O blower, are you young or old !
Are you a beast of field and tree,
Or just a stronger lad than me ?
We saw the different things you did,
But always you yourself you hid."

Jan. 20^A. — A very rough and boisterous night. At 2.15 A.M.
lost sight of the flagship. At 4.30 A.M. wore, and as soon as it was
light sighted the squadron. It was rainy and squallv all the
morning, and though the thermometer was no lower than 50*", yet we "
felt it rather nippy, and were glad to warm ourselves by a game of
" prisoner 8 base " after quarters. By noon we have made sixteen
miles since yesterday. At 7 P.M. lowered the topsails to a heavy
squall of rain and hail, and again at 11 P.M. We have been
reading Darwin's Adventurer in the Beagle, off the south coast of
Patagonia, to-day ; having finished Magellan's own account of his
voyage through the Straits and round the world, in the Hakluyt
Society's publications. All of these last we have in our cabin, and
have found some very interesting, especially those about South
America.

Jan, 2lst. — It has been a very squally night, force of the wind
eight to nine. We wore at 6.30 A.M., and then close-reefed the

1881. MONTE VIDEO TO THE FALKLANDS. 305

fore and main topsails, and furled mizen topsail. In the afternoon,
however, the wind fell a bit, and we were able to shake a reef out.
We are much to leeward of the rest of the squadron. Ther-
mometer 47°.

Jan. 22nd. — At 6 A.M. tacked, having shaken the reefs out in the
middle watch. We are now keeping station ; a beautiful, clear,
sunny day, not a cloud to be seen, and going through the water
nearly seven knots, quite a new sensation, though at noon we
had only made eighteen miles good since yesterday. Played at
" prisoner's base " in the evening after quarters, had a very good
game and got quite warm over it.

Jan. 23rd. — Thick weather, foggy; everything very damp.
Morning service on the main deck. All the afternoon going
seven and a-half knots, ships in close order ; 150 miles run since
yesterday at noon. In the evening the wind died away. At
10 P.M. signal made to " get up steam." Thus at last terminates our
passage from Monte Video to the Falklands, which, on the pro-
gramme was estimated to occupy nine days, but which has taken
fifteen. We have had rather a rough passage, with strong head
winds and gales from south-west and west, and adverse currents
most of the way. Although the thermometer only registers 50°,
we find it very cold after the warmth of the tropics.

Jan. 24fth. — At 2 a.m. down screw, furled sails and proceeded
under steam five knots. Very little wind, cloudy, with glimpses of
the sun, but the Falklands are in sight. At 10 A.M. we passed
Cape Carysfort, on the East Falkland, and then the broad entrance
to Berkeley Sound, as we steamed slowly along to Port William.
The hills are rounded, bleak, bare, and brownish, like Newmarket
Heath ; the cliffs are white, though not of chalk, something like the
Isle of Thanet, but more desolate looking, though on some we
can see the herds of cattle grazing. Entered Stanley Harbour in
single column in line ahead, and anchored at 1.37 P.M. The Garnet
has gone the farthest towards the east \ip the harbour and is lying
off the town ; the To^crmaline and Cleo2)atra are anchored next ;
then the Bacchante, the flagship by the entrance, and the Oarysfort
at the western end. The few houses that form the town fbuilt in
1853) look like an Irish village snugly nestling on the hill-side in
the distance. The wind here is blowing from the north, we wish
it had done so a little sooner ; the thermometer at noon is 45°. The
sun is shining bright. In the afternoon we got all the boats out.
All sorts of birds — albatross, gulls, divers, and a great many others —
VOL. I. X

306 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

were swarming round the ship. From where we lie the hill-sides
sloping down to the harbour seem all of monotonous brown grass.
On those to the south this is broken by two graves, which we
can distinguish through glasses, where a midshipman and another
oflScer are buried. They lost their way, and being overtaken by
night, died. Bishop Stirling — of the South American Missionary
Society, and who is related to Captain Stirling of the Atalanta and
has been here since 1869 — called on board the Bacchante. The work
of civilising the Fuegians on the mainland 400 miles away is pro-
gressing steadily, but very gradually. Three tribes inhabit the
archipelago of Tierra del Fuego. They are called, the Chonos, who
inhabit the north and east shores, and resemble the Patagonians in
being a tall race, chiefly living by hunting, but supplementing their
food with shell-fish and other marine animals ; the Yahgans, who
live on the shores of the Beagle channel and Southern islands, and
are a short, stunted race, subsisting almost entirely on the products
of the sea and birds ; and the Alakhoolips, who dwell in the Western
islands, and are very similar to the Yahgans. These last two tribes
lead a very degraded life, wandering about from place to place,
possess no houses, but construct shelter out of the branches of
trees, and build canoes of bark ; they wear very little clothing of
any kind. In stature they are short, the men averaging about
5 ft. 3 in. and the women about 5 ft. In the character of their skull
and skeleton they resemble the other wild native tribes of America,
but by isolation have assumed certain characters peculiar to
themselves. The population of the Fuegian islands appears to be
about 3,000. They used only to believe in an active maleficent
spirit and sorcery. Darwin said the strangest change he knew
was that being wrought among the Fuegians when they became
Christians, as they are one of the lowest types of humanity; he had
thought the civilisation of the Japanese the strangest, but he now
held this of the Fuegians to be stranger still. The Missionaries are
very slow to baptize natives on their merely professing Christianity :
they trust more to a gradual change. The Fuegians are not such
wreckers as they were, and they will now even exert themselves to
save the lives of strangers. The sealing-ships and the whalers,
who put into Beagle channel and other harbours, are at the bottom
of a great deal of the so-called savagery of the natives. European
sailors corrupt the women, and then when a row arises the husbands
and brothers of these are shot in the quarrel, and the consequence
is that retaliation is taken on the next ship of white men that

1881. THE FALKLAND ISLANDS. 307

comes within their reach. Things, however, are not nearly so bad
as they were.

[The first European that set eyes on the Falkland Islands seems
to have been the Elizabethan navigator John Davis, August 12,
1592; they were also visited by Hawkins in 1594. They were
taken possession of by the English but never inhabited, till the
French in 1763 occupied them for four years and re-christened
them Les Malouines : Spain took them in 1767 and held them for
another four years, and then ceded them to the English in 1771.
Their only importance consisted in their being a convenient
station at which sailing ships engaged in the whale fisheries might
refit and revictual. There are two large and about 100 small
islands. East Falkland is 100 miles long and 60 broad, with an
area of over 3,000 square miles; West Falkland is about 90
miles long and 50 broad, with an area of 2,300 square miles : the
area of the 100 smaller islands is another 1.200 square miles. The
two larger islands are separated by Falkland Sound, which is
from nine to twelve miles in breadth. On each there are hills
over 1,700 feet high, in which copper and iron ores have been
found. The climate is temperate and very healthy ; the thermo-
meter is never higher than 65° and never lower than 30° even in
the depth of winter, and there is little ice or snow : although the
islands lie in such a southerly latitude, the moist westerly winds
keep the temperature pretty steady. They contain many excellent
ports, and the grass lands are extremely luxuriant (the tussock
grass grows over 10 feet in height) and well adapted for rearing wild
stock. Whales are plentiful round the coasts, and fish, especially
cod, swarm in the bays, and large trout are caught in the lakes and
rivers of the interior. Peat is abundant for fuel, and lies often
over 10 feet in thickness. The chief export of the islands is wool :
of this nearly 2,000,000 lbs., in value 68,000^., were shipped in
1880. The total value of exports in that year was 88,000/. ;
that of the imports 33,000/. The total population of the islands
is only 1,583 : the local revenue 5,519/., and the expenditure 5,607/.
They cost the home Government about 500/. a year : and are a
Crown colony. The homeward trade from New Zealand goes round
Cape Horn and that from the Pacific passes through Magellan
Straits, the entrance to which is 310 miles to the west of them,
but being now chiefly in steam-vessels does not come near them*
What little importance they ever possessed for Imperial purposes
has now almost gone. By far the best thing for England to do

X 2

308

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1881

with the Falklands would be to exchange them at once with
France for New Caledonia. That island is arid and bare, 220
miles long by 30 broad, and therefore possesses an area very nearly
the same as that of the Falklands. Since 1854 it has been
occupied by the French as a penal settlement : it has become a
source of perpetual danger and nuisance to Australia. These
islands on the contrary if so employed would injure no neighbours ;
the climate is infinitely better than that of New Caledonia, and the
situation and capacities of the islands would make them almost an
ideal penal settlement, if France requires such. The exchange
would benefit both nations : and the amour-propre of France might
be flattered by thus again entering on the possession of Les
Malouines. The small sum that might be claimed as compensation
to the few settlers here would be a cheap price to pay for the
riddance once for all of our Australian fellow-countrymen from a
perpetual and increasing menace to their peaceful prosperity.]

FALKLANDS TO CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

rrTXTTTffof '

Jan. 2oth. — At 9.30 A.M. manned and armed boats, and after-
wards squadron was at sail drill. Some of the senior officers, who
were on board this morning, said that this last part of the cniise was
the worst knocking about they had ever had. A few officers went
across the island shooting. At 1 P.M. the Swallmo came in from
Monte Video, with a telegram for the Admiral. It had arrived there
before we were out of sight, but was carried about in the pocket
of the person to whom it was delivered, for three or four days.
Had it been despatched at once, we should have been spared our
pleasant excursion into these regions. For at 2 P.M. the Admiral
hoisted the** blue Peter," and fired a gun, and made the signal
"Prepare for sea immediately; Squadron to go to Cape of Good
Hope with all despatch." The steam pinnace was at once sent,

1881.

SOUTH AMERICA TO SOUTH AFRICA.

309

FALKLANDS TO CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

Datjl

Fbom Pretious Noon.

At Noon.

Tempkuatuke.

Distance.

Wind.

Lat.

Long.

8ea.

1 Air.

Course.

Bail.

Steam.

Noon

6 p.m.

Noon

fiP.M.

Jan.

.s.

...

N.E. to N.
2-6

...

N. 55 E.

N.W. 3-6

50-58

56-5

N. 64 E.

103

N.W. byN.
6, South 1

...

Nil

N. 63 E.

136

S.E. 1-3

48-24

50 41

N. 47 E.

S.W. 4-1,
N.N.W. 1

46-55

48-20

SOS.

N. 62 E.

152

N.W. 3-6

45-42

44-46

N. 56 E,

141

N.N.W.
to N.W. by

...

Feb.

N. 6-7

N. 82 E.

152

...

N.W. 7-4

43-56

38-20

N. 63 E.

228

N.W. by W. 7

42-12

33-42

N. 71 E.

213

...

W. & N.W.

6-7

41-2

29-14

N. 86 E.

156

N.N.W. 6-4,
N.toN.N.E.2

40-52

25-48

N. 89 E.

119

N.N.E. 5,
N.W. 5-6,
North 5-7

...

6S.

N. 85'80E.

186

N.W. 6-7.

...

N.E. 6, N.W.

& N. 5-4

N. 83 E.

114

N.W. by N.,
N.W. 2-4

...

S. 85 E.

208

...

N.W. 3-5,

N.E. 4-5

40-87

10-54

N. 88 E.

135

N.E. 4-5.

...

,N.W.&S.W.

3-4

N. 82 E.

155

S.W. 4-5,
N.W. 4-6

40-7

8-16
E.

N. 81 E.

185

S.W. 6-4

39-36

1-1

N. 84 E.

175

S.W. 3-4,
N.W. 3-4

3917-

4-46

13S.

N. 83 E.

...

182

N.N.W. 3,
N.E.byN.2-S

38-57

8-89

N. 71 E.

...

151

E. &S.E. 1-2

38-9

11-42

N. 64 E.

147

S.E. 3-4 &
Calm

87-6

14-80

16
Total

N. 46 E.
distance ..

2045

231
49

W. & N.W.

2-4

34-25

17-55

1620

.... 8,6

65 mile

310 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

and brought the shooting party back from Sparrow Cove. They

had akeady killed seventeen geese with five guns, and other sundries

(plover, hare, teal), and- were wending their way back when the

search party found them. They had come across the cairn erected to

an unfortunate naval oflScer, who had gone on a similar expedition,

and being benighted, had been found dead with his geese around

him. The Governor, Mr. Kerr (whom we met last year in Barbados

where he was then Attorney-General), with Mr. Collins, the colonial

secretary, came on board ; all the captains and many officers had

accepted invitations to dine with him this evening, and all the

resources of these out-of-the-way islands have been exerted to the

utmost for many weeks, to furnish a worthy welcome to the

Detached Squadron. But the " exigencies of the public service "

forbid, and in our unavoidable absence we leave the Garnet and

Sivallow to support the honour of the British Navy. Captain

Packe, a Norfolk gentleman, whom we have met out hunting at

Sandringham, and who is one of the proprietors here, had arranged

a visit to the Penguin Rookery, one of the curiosities of the place,

which also will have to be abandoned. But of course it can't be

helped. Six hours after the receipt of the telegram, all were on

board, steam up, ships under way, and the squadron left Stanley

Harbour at 7.30 p.m. The whole of the carefully-arranged

programme of our cruise has been, in one moment, completely

broken up and destroyed; good-bye now to any chance of our

passing the Magellan Straits, or of seeing those other parts

of South America whose natural and political history has

occupied so large a share of our reading during the past twelve

months — the Andes, Cuzco, and Titicaca. Gone are all hopes

we had of seeing Cotopaxi, and Chimborazo and Quito, and the

Gallapagos, as well as all chances of visiting Vancouver's Island

and British Columbia in the spring, or the Sandwich Islands or

aught else, in the Pacific. But doubtless it is all for the best. We

are off instead to make a " demonstration " at the Cape, 3,410 miles

away, or, possibly, sent to earn some " medals " or distinctions by

active service there.

" "We doubt not of a fair and lucky ivar,
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason lurking in our way
To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now
But every rub is smoothed on our way.
Then forth, dear countrymen : let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition.
Cheerly to sea ! the signs of war advance."

JTenry V. Act 2, Sc. ii.

1881. FALKLANDS TO CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 311

Jan, 26^A. — In the middle watch, at 1 a.m., stopped engines and
banked fires, made plain sail, and at 2 A.M. up screw. There was a
light wind from the north-west, and we were able to make between
three and four knots under sail ; with sail and screw we were going
seven. At dawn the sky was hazy. A thick fog came on in the
afternoon, and towards evening the wind all died away, and it
fell a flat calm. The fog was so dense we could see nothing ; every
half hour all through the melancholy night the flagship fired a
gun, and the Bacchante, as leader of the lee line, repeated the
signal three minutes after.

Jan, ^Tth, — Thick fog, denser (if anything) than last night;
everything is saturated with moisture, damp and cold, and not a
breath of wind. During the morning a gun-signal from the flag-
ship directed us to " get up steam," so at 11 A.M. down screw. At
2.30 P.M. we heard a steam-whistle right astern ; the fog was still
very thick, and out of it came the Inconstant, and the other three
ships. We then shortened and furled sails, and commenced steam-
ing between six and seven knots, and so went groping along in the
darkness in single column in line ahead. At 11 P.M. it cleared
somewhat, but all through the night half-hour guns were still
firing.

Jan. 28^A. — Towards morning, as a slight wind sprang up from the
southward, we made plain sail ; at 5.30 A.M. the fog cleared off, and
we all see each other again ; at 8 A.M. we stopped steaming and got
the screw up. The screw and banjo frame weigh about twenty
tons, and this has to be raised nearly thirty feet from the water,
till close up under the " strong back " on the poop. In order to do
this two seven-inch pendants or hawsers are rove over the rollers
in the iron frame ('* strong back") that arches over the screw well ;
at the end of each of these pendants a sixfold purchase is secured,
the hauling part of which is then manned on either side of the
deck by the ship's company. It requires the labour of every man
in the ship, hauling his full power on these to raise the screw, and
therefore, when the operation is performed in the night watches, it
compels every one, when the lower deck is cleared, to rouse out
from his short four hours' sleep. When there is a slight rolling or
pitching of the ship, more especially if the night be dark, those who
descend into the screw well, with a rope round the body, in order
to loosen the wedges that hold the screw frame in position, have
also the difficulties and risk of their duty increased. After we had
hoisted screw we rounded in and set the starboard stunsails. After

312 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

general quarters the Admiral formed the fleet into single column
in line abreast. In this formation we continued and made about
5*8 knots all day. The untrained men and the midshipmen were
exercised in the afternoon at firing from oflF the poop with small
arms (rifles and pistols) at a target towed astern. This is in
preparation for landing a Naval Brigade on our arrival in South
Africa.

Jan. 2dth. — The wind has fallen very light, so in the middle
watch, at 2.30 A.M., rove the screw purchase and down screw, and
commenced steaming six knots. Shortened and furled sails at
8 A.M. A fine calm morning, not quite so cold as it was yesterday ;
thermometer 55°. Proceeding the same as yesterday. At 1.40
P.M. made plain sail and set port stunsails. Many albatross flying
round the ship; some very big ones. We tried to catch these
with pieces of salt pork at the end of lines, but the birds made
ofif with the bait generally, and left the hook bare. We hooked
one after evening quarters, however, and were hauling him in, only
as we were going too fast, seven or eight knots, he too came oflF.
We burn seven cwt. of coal per hour to go at our present speed,
and could continue for twenty-five days at the same rate. The
. Tourmaline, the Cleopatra, and the Carysfort, could continue for
seventeen and nineteen days only. The flagship is so far better at
sailing than the rest of the squadron, that she has been keeping
up under sail alone, with the other four ships under steam. The
Admiral signalled " Annul keeping station, keep within two miles
of the flagship." The Liconstant is a capital sailer ; in the last
Flying Squadron she was able to hold her own against several of
the old frigates. She carries a far larger area of canvas, in pro-
portion to her tonnage, than any other of the four ships now
sailing with her. And as to beating to windward, none of the
little ships, least of all the Bacchante, can do it at all. At steam-
ing, however, we get the piill over her, as, owing to her engines
having been built before the latest improvements were designed,
she consumes a far greater amount of coal than any other of the four
ships. With compound engines she would be the finest cruiser in
the English fleet.

Jan. SOth. — At 9 A.M. we took in a reef of the topsails. It was
thick and hazy, with rain and squalls from the north-west. We
are still steaming, and so are all the others, except the flagship,
and average seven knots all day. Usual service on the main
deck.

1881. SOUTH AMERICA TO SOUTH AFRICA. 313

Jan. ^Ist. — At 9 a.m. up screw, a nasty morning, raining and
blowing. There is a fresh breeze, and we are going eight knots.
Towards evening the wind began to fall, and at 8 P.M. it was a
calm. The rain came down in torrents, deluging and darkening
everything, especially from 9 P.M. to 4 A.M. the next morning. At
9 P.M. we were taken aback, and so were all the other ships. The
wind, however, gradually went round by the south to north and
west again. We lost sight of the flagship at 7.30 p.m., during a
rain squall, and occasionally of the other ships. A dreary night.

Feb. Ist. — In the middle watch thick mist came on, which at 6 A.M.
became fog ; flagship firing half-hour guns, and the other ships
tootling their fleet numbers on their fog-horns till 7.30 A.M., when
it cleared oflF, and the wind drew aft and the sun shone out, and we
got five knots out of the Bacchante, At 11 A.M. the wind came on
the quarter, and we set the port stunsails, and as the wind freshened
at 4 P.M. we were rushing along nearly twelve knots, which is quite
exhilarating after what we have lately experienced, with a bright
sun, and over a dark-blue sea flecked white with foam. This is the
best day's work the Bacchante has yet done. This afternoon we
have accomplished more than one-quarter of the distance across to
the Cape. We have been, too, second best ship in sailing all day
till this evening, wh()n we and the flagship shortened sail to wait
for the other three ships.

Feb. 2nd. — A fine day and a nice fresh breeze ; with all plain sail,
the wind right aft, we go between nine and ten knots, but we are
rolling a bit, and there is more swell. At noon we have made the
best run we have ever made under sail, 228 miles. The tempera-
ture of the sea is 59°, four or five degrees warmer than the air.

Feb. Srd. — Wind still favourable, and we are making eight knots
during the whole of a pleasant English summer s day ; it feels much
warmer, thermometer 62° at noon. Exercised landing parties, as at
present we do not know for what cause we are going to " demon-
strate," but it is generally supposed it is either against the Basutos
or Zulus. Boots and gaiters, belts and water-bottles, blankets, &c.,
were inspected ; and accoutred in these the men, in heavy march-
ing order, were taught how to skirmish, &c., preparatory to their
being landed in the field as part of a Naval Brigade, if required.
In the evening the Cleopatra and the Garysfort were each close
alongside us ; we three were all much ahead of the flagship, who
was waiting astern for the Tourmaline. After dinner Bacchante* s
band went on the poop and played " Good-night, all's well," for the

314 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

two vessels to hear. A fine starlight night, and the young moon was
bright for an hour after sunset. The nights, hitherto, since leaving
the Falklands, have been dark, without moon ; now, of course, every
succeeding night we shall have a fuller enjoyment of her services.

Feb. 4;th, — Wind falling light, but bright and pleasant all the
morning, and we are sailing along with the two little ships, one on
each side of us, and the Inconstant is coming up astern with the
Tourmaline, General quarters and landing parties again this fore-
noon. Before the dinner-hour got the screw down, and at 2.30
P.M. proceeded under steam, what wind there was being from the
north, with the sky dark and cloudy. At evening drill shifted
topsails, and were first ship of squadron in the evolution by ten
minutes ; fog came on, and the wind all fell at 7 P.M., so furled sails.

Feb. 5th, — At 3.15 A.M. made sail to port stunsaik and got the
screw up again at 6.15 A.M. An hour afterwards we lost sight of all
the ships in the thickest and most unpleasant fog we have had,
the wind from the north-west, and the sea apparently getting up.
There are two currents, one warm and the other cold, that meet
hereabouts, the former from the north and the latter from the
south, and thus generate the fog, which is marked on the chart as
always prevailing on this patch for twelve out of the twenty-eight
days in February. With the fog comes the rain. The flagship
fires the half-hour gun, and we and the other ships sound our fleet
numbers in succession on the hand fog-horn (as we are under sail),
so many short or long blasts every ten minutes. Every ship sounds
first "List of the Navy" sign, and then her own number; so as she
comes along there would be heard first, one short, then one long
(three times the length of the short), and then another short ; which
three blasts signify **List of the Navy" ; then comes her number,
which for the Bacchante is four shorts, tut, tilt, tfit, tdt ; and for the
Carysfort, five such; for the Cleopatra two, for the Tourmaline
three, and for the Inconstant one. So there is not any very great
difference, and one has to keep one's ears open when this is done
every ten minutes. The fog-horn gives but a feeble and melancholy
sound, which cannot be heard at any great distance, and as we
stand listening for the faint sounds and peering into the fog, we see
looming up one or other of the little ships, which again disappears
into the gloom ; and so we grope our way along.

Feb, 6th. — Thick fog and very wet, with a heavy swell coming
up from the south-west, which we hope is the precursor of the
wind coming up thence to lift the fog ; the barometer keeps very

1881. FALKLANDS TO CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 315

high, though the wind has hitherto been from the north. Usnal
service on the main deck. In the evening, at 8.30 p.m., the moon
tried to pierce the fog, which does not apparently extend upwarsd
from the sea surface for any great distance, for at midnight, and
several times for a few minutes, the stars are visible overhead,
though all around the ship is veiled in densest darkness ; still the
fog doesn't break, and if you stand on deck for ten minutes you
get quite drenched, as it precipitates itself upon you in a very
continuous and fine rain.

Feb. 7th. — Still a thick fog, and heard some of the ships quito
close to us, but could not make out which. Suddenly, at 1.30 p.m.,
it all cleared off, and we saw, three miles distant on the port
quarter, the Inconstant, Tourmaline, and Cleopatra, sailing along
almost in line, and the Carysfort abeam between us and them.
Admiral then made the " general recall " and signal to " take up
our appointed stations." Got sights by artificial horizon, one in
oil and one in quicksilver. But we are not clear of the fog yet,
for at 7.30 p.m. down it came again very thick, and all through
the night the signal-gun was firing as we passed through banks of
it which lasted for an hour or so at a time.

Feb, %th, — In the middle watch, at 2 A.M., the fog lifted, and we
caught sight of the ships again. The morning dawned clear of
fog, but the sky is overcast, and we are sailing along over seven
knots, the Bacchante as guide of the fleet, and the three little
ships under steam to keep up. At 4 P.M. took up our station on
the starboard beam of the flagship and an hour afterwards observed
Gough Island, north-east, 4,000 odd feet high and uninhabited.
To-day there are a lot of Cape hens flying round the ship and
swarms of dark brown and black birds on the water : the chief
engineer caught one with a hook and line astern. It was a fine
specimen with black bill ; underneath his glossy thick plumage,
which was dark brown on the surface, he had a very thick white
fluffy down to protect him against the cold. This down however
was swarming with lice. After evening quarters had a good game
of "prisoners base." It was foggy at intervals all through the
night, and the flagship's gun kept booming away.

Feb. 9<A.— At 2.30 A.M. the fog lifted, got a sight of the flagship,
and at 5 AM. rove screw purchase and down screw ; we were then
going about three knots. Soon afterwards a breeze sprang up from
the south, and we go along close-hauled between six and seven
knots, but as the screw is down we use steam as well. At noon

316 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

we were 1,300 miles from the Cape. It has been much colder
to-day (51°) than it had been for some days.

Feb, 10th. — At 7 A.M. up screw, as wind is right aft, and set stun-
sails both sides. Though we make nine knots on an average all day
yet we are the " dummy " of the squadron, as the Bacchante never
sails so well compared with the other ships, with the wind right
aft, as she does when it is on the quarter. The sun came out
occasionally, but there were many rain squalls, one of which, at
about noon, carried away the flagship's mizen topgallant mast just
above the cap. Read Duke of Argyll's paper on flight of birds,
and afterwards observed how some that were following the ship,
and which look like small albatross, float on the wind for a con-
siderable length of time with their wings outspread and motion-
less, just as the flying-fish do. They float thus even when they
rise or descend, turn or wheel : using all the time only the muscles
of the tail to propel themselves, in the same way as a fish in the
water does his tail. Hence we can understand how they can
traverse hundreds of miles down the wind with comparatively
slight muscular exertion or fatigue. All birds of passage take but
an occasional flap once every hour or so, and thus are enabled
to accomplish long distances, whereas those birds which make
short and frequent motions of the wings, like partridges, can fly
comparatively only short distances.

Feb, 11th. — At 8.30 A.M. down screw and commenced steaming
an hour afterwards, wind dying away, but heavy swell remaining
from yesterday's wind, under which we continue for the rest of the
passage as we have all now enough coal to carry us into Simon's
Bay. General quarters during the forenoon, and in the afternoon,
in addition to the usual sail drill, all the landing party and am-
bulance (with the doctor, who is very fond of giving instructions
to us under the poop during the smoking hour on the use of
the tourniquet and bandages), fell in, fully equipped for landing.
Beautiful moonlight night, scarcely any wind.

Feb. 12th. — ^Almost a dead calm, steaming seven knots. In the
afternoon we were, however, able to make sail to port stunsails.
At 4.30 P.M., George Dunn, the sailmaker, died of softening of the
brain ; he had been insensible since 7 A.M., and on the sick list for
three days. Watched the sun go down from the poop, with Venus,
Jupiter and Saturn, in conjunction and apparently equally distant
from each other in a line inclined at an angle of 30° to the horizon ;
directly the sun had set they shone out brightly.

1881. SOUTH AMERICA TO SOUTH AFRICA 317

Fch, l^tK — At 10 A.M. stopped engines, lowered royals, up courses,
in trysails, and hove to for George Dunn's funeral : a bright, sunny
day, not a cloud to be seen, and nearly a dead calm. Sunday
morning service on the main deck immediately afterwards, at which
the hymns and the psalms were sung even more heartily than
usual. In the afternoon furled sails ; the wind from the east, what
little there is, and clouds coming up from that quarter at sunset.
The Tmirmaline was taken in tow by the flagship.

Feb, \^th. — At 5.30 A.M. the Tourmaline's towing hawser parted,
which delayed squadron for two hours, while they made fast two
hawsers, this time. Heavy swell from the east and south-east (the
effect of winds that have been prevalent here for some days),
ship pitching, but very irregularly : sometimes much, and then for
many minutes not at all. The wind drew round during the after-
noon to the south, and we were able to set fore and aft sail. It
has been raining on and off all day : the night is cloudy, but light,
as the moon is now near her full.

Feb. Ibth. — We have been steaming between six and seven knots
all the night, and at 9 A.M. lit fires in two more boilers, and in-
creased our speed to nine knots, and altered course, heading up for
Simons Bay, from which at noon we are 250 miles distant. During
the forenoon prepared for action aloft. It is very pleasant getting
into the warm weather once more ; to-day the thermometer is up
to 70°. The wind drew aft during the afternoon, so after evening
quarters made sail to port stunsails ; the swell too has quite sub-
sided during the night. In the afternoon the Toiinncdine, which
had been cast off by the flagship, had to stop in order to repair
machinery, her engines having broken down. In the 4,000
miles of sea which we have traversed between the Falklands and
the Cape of Good Hope, we have not seen a single sail, nor any
signs of life, except some sea birds : and more than once we felt
a strange weird feeling when we looked south, and fancied there
was no more land down there, over the liquid hills and valleys of
rolling water, but only the icy homes of birds and sprites. As we
seemed to be sailing along on " the sloping edge of the globe,"
we could imagine that if we went far enough down there we should
slip off the edge into space.

Feb, 16th. — A glorious morning, with blue sea, small clouds,
sunshine and warmth. At noon sighted the African hills north ot
Table Mountain; the flagship's compasses are out, so we have
been steering too far north ; we at once altered course. Furled sails

318

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1881.

at 1.30 P.M. At 4 P.M. rounded the Cape Point, and stood up for
Simon's Bay, where at 6.5 P.M. we let go the anchor with splash,
noise, and mttle of chain. There had been a small lottery sweep-
stakes as to the hour of our letting the anchor go : each subscriber
drew a particular half hour, and as we crept up to our berth there
was some excitement between the owner of 5^ to 6 and Eddy, who
had drawn 6 to 6^^. He won by a short five mimites. The Incon-
stant has taken up the moorings close in shore : the little ships
form the next line, and the Bacchante is furthest out. As we opened
the point near the Roman Rocks we made out with interest from
among the masts of the ships lying here, those of H.M.'8 troopship
Tamar (Captain T. N. Royse), which has just returned from Natal.
We learn afterwards that it was on account of the revolt of the
Transvaal Boers that we had come to " demonstrate." Some of our
Dutch fellow-subjects ashore, as the fleet came up the bay, hoisted
the Dutch ensign on their houses in Kalk Bay, in token of their
good wishes to the Boers. Tourmaline came in and anchored at
8.30 P.M. Glad to get newspapers and mails from England, though
the news from Ireland is very bad.

AT SIMON'S BAY.

Date.

WlXD.

Tempeaaturs.

Sex

Air.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Feb.

N.W. 2-3

S.S.E. 1-2

S.S.E. 2-6

20 S.

S.E. 7-9

S.E. 7 -9 -2

: 22

Calm & N.W.I

N.W. 1

S.S.E- 1-7

59 ' 59

Fd). 17th. — A north-west wind, clouds over all the hills, and rain.
At 11 A.M. began coaling and continued at it till 7 p.m. ; what with
the rain and coal-dust, a fearful mess everywhere. The squadron is
coaling and provisioning so as to be ready as soon as possible for
whatever is required of us. Landed in the afternoon and' walked
up Red Hill ; found most of the heather s bloom past, but here
and there some fine scarlet specimens still out. Geraniums grow

S
OQ

1881. SIMON'S BAY TO CAPE TOWN. 319

wild all over the place. Afterwards walked through Simon's Town
and out through the cemetery.

Feb, \%th, — Coaling on board Bacchante continued all day and
right up into the middle watch the next night, when we finished
at 4 A.M., having taken in 431 tons. A fine day and quite warm.
The Admiral and captains drove over to Cape Town to call on
Sir Hercules Robinson, the Governor. At about 4 p.m. the wind
began to blow from the south-east, and the Muisenberg Hill put on
its white cap, which is formed by the cold wind from the sea
coming in contact with the warmer air on the sides of the hill,
whose moisture is thus precipitated and forms the woolly-looking
cloudwreath.

Feb, \9th. — At 8 a.m. lu)isted court-martial jack and fired a gun.
At 9.30 A.M. court-martial assembled on board Bacchante and sat
till 2.15 P.M. A south-east gale blowing. At 3.45 P.M. our starboard
cable parted while veering, and the ship drifted astern until
brought up by the port anchor. Admiral made signal " Get up
steam immediately and shift berth." At 5.30 P.M. we weighed port
anchor, steamed up to our old berth, let it go again, veered to
eight shackles and let go the starboard sheet anchor under foot, as
the rest of the squadron had two anchors down.

Feb, 20th. — Splendid bright sunshine, but south-east gale with
squalls still blowing, often up to 10. Celebrated Holy Communion
for the first time this year. The Princess Louise of Wales's
birthday.

Feb, 21st. — Wind lulled towards early morning. At 8 A.M.
divers went down to get hold of the end of the starboard cable
that had snapped on the 19th; when secured it was found that the
link which had broken had been badly forged. At half-past twelve
we left the ship in order to visit Cape Town. It was a beautiful
fine day, and after landing in the dockyard quite privately, we
mounted an American-built " spider " or light four-wheeled carriage
open all round but with a canopy to shade oflf the sun ; harnessed
to this were four white horses which the Governor had sent over
from Cape Town and which were driven by a Malay coachman ;
the luggage followed in another cart. The road at first mounts
through Simon's Town, and after passing in front of the commodore's
house then runs for some distance skirting the rocky shore and along
side the sands and sea. It is littered pretty plentifully with the
old iron shoes that have been cast by horses. At one place where
there were extensive sands on which were lying large numbers of

320 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

crimson jelly-fish and huge sticks of seaweed, the driver turned
off from the road all of a sudden and took his horses some distance
through the sea for a freshener ; the wheels on the near side were
half under water as we drove along on the borders of the surf. At
Farmer Peck's, a small inn about nine miles from Simon s Bay, he
wanted to stop. " The Shepherd of Salisbury plain " is the sign,
and verses in English, Dutch and Latin, promise " Good beds and
no fleas, Wholesome food and small fees." But not needing either
we made the best of our way on to Kalk Bay where we drove through
two or three villages to which in the summer-time the townsfolk of
Cape Town send their children for sea-bathing. There were lots of
tubs of fish drying in the sun and spread upon the beach. It is
the centre of the salt-fish trade of the Malays and the smell is
always pretty strong. Soon afterwards we turned up northward
round the spurs of the Muisenberg to Wynberg, ten miles from
Cape Town, from which it is reached by a short railway, the first laid
in the colony. On our left hand we now have a mountainous chain,
dark and wooded, which is the outlying spur of the Table Mountain ;
on our right, but fifty miles off, are the peaks of the flat-topped
Hottentot Holland mountains.

At Wynberg the character of the road alters, but it is still dry
and dusty. We pass beneath groves of Scotch fir-trees, all whose
lower stems are covered with the red dust from the road. The eflfect
on first looking at them is as if the ruddy hues of sunset were
here held in suspension all day long. The Malay driver pulled up
at a small inn on the right-hand side of the road to give his horses
a few minutes* rest and a drink of water while he was refreshing
himself; he had been boosy all the way since leaving Simon's Town,
and had whisked round corners with many a narrow shave. On
leaving Wynberg his nerves were strung for greater efforts, and
though the road was wide he steered full tilt up against a Cape
waggon that was drawn up and standing motionless on one side
of the road, and thus smashed the fore-wheel of the carriage we
were in, but drove on quite regardless with the broken spokes to
Government Hou?e, where we arrived all right at 4 P.M.

Sir Hercules Robinson and his A.D.C. Major St. John, and
private secretary, Lieut. Bower R.N., together with Mr. Newton, the
assistant secretary, welcomed us, and afterwards introduced us to
Lady Robinson. The doors of all the rooms are ornamented with
paintings of Cape flowers which the Miss Freres did. We saw
their brother at Gibraltar, but Sir Bartle we have not seen since

1881. CAPE TOWN. 321

the year before last at Abergeldie. " Ask any colonist haphazard —
Africander or English — his opinion of Sir Bartle Frere, and in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred you will be told that he was
conscientious, able, far-seeing, magnanimous, truthful, and loyal.
From all men in South Africa who have studied the subject you
will get the same reply, that he was a Christian gentleman believing
in the missionary and in evangelisation implicitly, yet one who
allowed common-sense and his plain duty to dominate his mind
and his actions." At dinner that evening there were General
Leycester Smyth, commanding the forces, and his A.D.C., Captain
Colville : Mr. Sprigg (the Prime Minister), and Colonel Bruce (of
the 91st Regiment).

Feb, 22nd. — Spent the morning chiefly in Government House
garden, where there are some fine old trees and plenty of shade,
and then walked across into the Botanic Garden, which was at one
time part of the former, and is separated from it by a splendid
avenue of oaks nearly a mile long, planted in the Dutch days of
the colony. On either side of this is a watercourse, now dry, but
at one time filled with a running stream brought from the springs
on Table Mountain. The prettiest thing in the garden is the view
of the mountain towering up like a black massive wall and covered
on its flat top with a white fleecy cloud which is now being formed
there by the south-easter.

In the afternoon some of the party went out for a ride along
the sands, and others walked down Adderley Street, a broad
dusty road, in which are the chief stores and shops of Cape Town,
with a landing pier at the sea-end. Nearly all the necessaries of
every-day life are imported, and the colonists still look to Europe
in a large measure for their food supply. Wheat and butter and
cheese, tea, flour, beer, spirits, tinned vegetables, tinned meat and
fish are imported in incredible quantities. Everything in Cape
Town is fearfully dear. Eggs are threepence each, oranges, which
grow in the place, are twopence each. A few of the larger store-
keepers, English and German (who have no middlemen to employ
in the shape of merchants), have in former days accumulated large
fortunes, with a profit, it is stated, of 100 per cent, on everything
they sold: it is different with the smaller shopkeepers. Wages
for shop assistants are from 101. to 201. per month. But trade
and business are reported to have within the last years enormously
fallen off", and to be rapidly and steadily diminishing. Instead of
giving full employment for a fast line of fourteen large steamers, each

VOL. 1. Y

322 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

over 3,000 tons, six are now found to be ample. The net earnings
of the Union Steamship Company have dropped from 156,000/.
to 56,000/. and the company pays no dividend. In 1882 the
export and import trade of all South Africa amoimted to over
14,000,000/. ; in 1884 to only 11,000,000/., showing a decline of 23
per cent., and a consequent equivalent decline in the customs
dues, the chief source of revenue. Here, as in South America,
in a land teeming with cattle, most of the milk is imported in
tins from Norway and Switzerland; most of the cheese abo
comes from Europe. Transport difficulties in a large and sparsely
populated country are pleaded here as an explanation. It is more
economical to import from Europe than to cart down from up
country.

We then went up on to Signal Hill, whence we got a good view of
Table Bay with Robben Island in the offing, and the long brownish
red line of the Hottentot hills beyond, and of Cape Town itself
lying all along the valley. The wide expanse of white houses with
flat roofs is broken only by the square tower of the English cathe-
dral and the older domed tower of the Dutch Reformed Church.
Walked on then to see the large new reservoir which is being
built at the foot of Table Mountain for the waterworks. The
town (with its 33,000 inhabitants, not quite the size of Cambridge)
is execrably supplied with water, and the whole place is more
like a dust-heap than anything else. Whichever way the wind
blows — either from the south-east during the sumiiier half of
the year, November to April, or from the north-west during the
winter half, May to October — clouds of dust are kept perpetu-
ally on the move, charged very often with germs of various dis-
eases, from one part of the town to the other. [Small-pox, fever,
and diphtheria are readily propagated thus, and all three are
very frequent. Those who advocate the system of no drainage
which now prevails here urge, however, that it is the most healthy
arrangement possible, as the dust covers over any ill thing that
may be exposed for a short time in the open air, and thus makes
the whole city one large Moule's earth-closet. One reason
perhaps for acquiescence in this state of things is that the finances
of the Cape Colony are in the most serious condition; the
Cape Town municipality is said to be nearly bankrupt, and
some of the banks are in a bad way. At the chief print-
shop we purchased likenesses of the two rebel Boer leaders,
Joubert and Kruger, for which there seems a very large sale.

1881. CAPE POLITICS. 323

Two out of every three of the European population here are Dutch ;
all the land is held by Dutch farmers, and it is only natural, however
much Englishmen may regret it, that they should feel anxious and
uneasy at the war now being waged against their kindred in the
Transvaal. A few years ago this was one of the most loyal of the
British colonies : and still they express loyalty to " the Queen," but
great dissatisfaction with "the Home Government." They are
averse to having anything to do with an English parliament in
which only the inhabitants of the British Isles are represented ;
as they look to their own Cape parliament alone. A responsible
Government has been given to the colony, but the decisions
of its representatives have been continually overruled, so that the
diflSculties in the way of any Cape ministry really carrying out a
policy of its own, or even having one or doing anything at all, have
been much increased : the Houses of Assembly feel that they
have been merely playing at being rulers. An imperial policy of
alternate jingoism and peace at any price, colonial internecine wars,
party disputes in the colony (however reasonable each of these
may be in itself), have all tended to ruin the stability of political
and commercial life. They have had war upon war, trouble upon
trouble, an endless tangle of Basuto, Zulu, KaflSr complications ; and
on the top of these diflSculties the question of confederation was
stirred, and the country was stumped by semi-oflBcial emissaries
from England, whose real drift and aim appear not to have been
understood. A confederation here would have to embrace far more
heterogeneous materials than in the West Indies, in Canada, or
in Australia. Union of interests and of nationality is the only
basis for easy confederation ; and at present the interests of various
parts even of Cape Colony (of the Eastern and Western Provinces),
those of Natal, of Basutoland, of Zululand, of the two Dutch Re-
publics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, appear to the
respective inhabitants dissimilar and antagonistic. In the Eastern
Provinces of Cape Colony the English element is stronger than
the Dutch, which again is in the ascendency in the Western
Provinces. Port Elizabeth and Graham's Town dissent from Cape
Town on almost all subjects, and revolt from the supposed social
and political supremacy of the capital. Further division would
seem more natural than confederation at present. Griqualand
West and the Diamond Fields desire a local government of their
own, separate from the Cape Parliament ; the Eastern Provinces
might very reasonably (it would seem to an outsider) form them-

Y 2

324 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

selves into another colony separate from the Western. Such local
independence might conduce in the long run to greater union ; for
friction between the Dutch and English races would thus be
lessened, not increased, by each colony managing its own local
aflfairs, and a common policy regarding other than local matters
would be more likely to be adopted. It has been so in Canada
and in Australia (where Victoria and Queensland have both been
separated from New South Wales years ago, to their mutual
advantage and development), and possibly might be so in South
Africa. When the railways are completed and the resources of
the various parts of South Africa are developed, then there may be
union: to force it on now from the outside is simply impossible,
however conducive to the real interests of South Africa such union
would be if spontaneous. A South African Dutch Republic of the
United States of South Africa is, it is true, the ambition of many,
and this is so far a healthy sign of the growth of a national feeling.
Africanders naturally are as keen for the recognition of their
nationality as Canadians and Australians are ; but the growth of
such national feeling need not in the least of necessity imply that
Africanders might not be as proud of being part and parcel of the
British Empire as Scotchmen, or Canadians, as Welshmen, or
Australians. By running counter to that feeling, however, we render
them as hostile as the Irish have been rendered by similar shortsight-
edness. Amongst all, the prevailing feeling is one of uncertainty
and apprehension. Eighteen months ago the Dutch and English lived
side by side in friendship, connected in many cases not only by
business relations but by family ties. But this Transvaal war has
wrought up the feeling of race animosities to a point never
approached before in the history of South Africa. The Dutch
aie now determined to assert their power and to attain supremacy ;
the English minority (rightly or wrongly) resent bitterly the
position in which they have been placed by the action of the
Home Government. Neighbours, formerly living on friendly
terms, now view each other with suspicion and aversion. Even
the most hopeful men, who, contrary to the general opinion, hold
that there is a possibility of the present difficulties being peacefully
surmounted, yet admit that the situation is extremely dangerous,
and that the utmost care will be requisite to avert an explosion,
involving not improbably the loss of the whole of South Africa to
the British Crown. In many parts of the country Africander doctrines
are preached from the Dutch pulpit ; just as Bishop Gray too set up

1881. CAPE POLITICS. 325

his Church of South Africa independent of the Church of England ;
and thus Calvinist and Anglican alike do but witness to the same
Africander feeling. The majority of the Dutch up to the present
time have been content for the most part to be represented by
English members in the House of Assembly, but a new spirit is now
coming over them, and at the next general election they certainly
have it in their power, if they have the will, to return a majority
of Dutch members. A Dutch ministry would then take office,
which might be an improvement upon the existing state of things,
inasmuch as the responsibility of governing the countiy would then
devolve upon those who had already in a great measure the power
of directing the policy.^ It is possible the Dutch may hold views
as to the best mode of advancing their interests which some in
England may think mistaken. The Dutch as a rule are slow
cautious, economical and very averse to change. Their platform
embraces such measures as protection to Cape industries, the re-
striction of immigration, and the raising of the money qualification
for the franchise. If these are the views of the majority it is
surely better that they should be carried into effect under the
responsibilities of office and under the restraints imposed by an
active and intelligent minority, than that they should be dictated
to such a minority by an irresponsible majority sitting on the
Opposition benches. A large proportion of the older and wealthier
Dutch colonists are thoroughly loyal to England, and fully appre-
ciate the benefits of belonging to the British Empire, but of
course it is not in human nature that they should not feel strongly
drawn towards their relatives in the two Dutch Republics of the
Orange Free State and the Transvaal. The race struggle in
South Africa is full of interest, theoretical and practical, for all
who believe in Greater Britain. The blending of the two races is
the only way in which the Cape may take her share in such a
consummation. Patience and firm rule may yet turn the Cape
into a colony as loyal and prosperous in its measure as Canada
or Australia ; but, on the other hand, a heated and eager assertion
of British supremacy may easily drive them to join their kith and
kindred under the flag of Holland, and eventually perhaps of the
German Empire ; and Great Britain is debarred from even thinking
of the possibility of attempting their reconquest, having declared

1 In the present Parliament (1884) of the 74 memherfl, 82 are pure Dutch, 18 are
of the Upington or Government party (which Mr. Sprigg the late Premier has now
joined), which is also supported by the Dutch, and only 29 are of the Scanlen or
Opposition party.

326 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

repeatedly that she will never again endeavour to coerce a
colony to remain beneath her flag, especially one with a constitu-
tional and representative government, which wishes to become
independent.]

Coming home through the town we admired some of the old
Dutch mansions; they are fine and massively built, with heavy
dormer windows and little panes, but the roofs are flat. They are
chiefly now inhabited by the Malays and other coloured people that
make up the bulk of the population of Cape Town. The Dutch
and Europeans havo migrated to the suburbs. In olden days many
Anglo-Indians used to come here from India for a short sojourn,
on account of the dryness of the atmosphere and the cold nights,
and occupied these houses for a time, and reaped more benefit from
so doing than from the longer voyage to England : since the Suez
Canal has been opened the Cape is never seen by them at all. To
dinner that evening came the Chief Justice, Sir Henry de Villiers,
Mr. Pearson (treasurer-general) and Mr. Leonard (the attorney-
general). The broad verandah outside the house opening into the
garden made a cool and pleasant retreat after the heat of the day.

Feb, 23rd. — Went with Lady Robinson to a small bazaar for
some Dutch church ; the band of the 91st Regiment had been
sent to play there. Played lawn-tennis afterwards in the garden
with Lieutenant Weigall, R.A., whose brother was in the Britannia
with us ; then walked up the stream which comes down from Table
Mountain, and where, at about two miles out of the town, the
Malay washerwomen ply their trade. The scanty stream is full
of boulders, and what there is of it is gathered into small pools
at the foot of these, in which the clothes are placed and pounded
and then hung on the tops of bushes and shrubs to dry. The
whole place seemed reeking with soapsuds and filth, and it looked
as if most of the clothes would come away from the process
dirtier than they went. To dinner came Mr. Laing (Minister for
Public Works), and Mr. and Mrs. Southey ; the latter gentleman
was late Lieut. -Governor of Griqualand West.

Feb, 24tth, — In the morning Prince Louis came up with Mr.
Caulfield and stayed to lunch. In the afternoon, from four to six,
Lady Robinson had a reception to which about 650 people came,
and stood about in the house and verandahs and under the trees in
the garden listening to the band of the 91st Regiment. To diimer
came Mr. Merriman (leader of the Opposition), Mr. Saul Solomon,
one of the two members for Cape Town and the very able proprietor

1881. ROBBEN ISLAND AND TABLE MOUNTAIN. 327

of the Gape Argus, the leading paper in South Africa, and general
friend of the natives, and Mr. Ayling.

Feb, 25<A. — Some of the party went over with Mr. Southey at
7 A.M. to shoot on Robben Island, ten miles ofif shore in Table Bay.
It was very hot and tiring walking over the loose sand which is
the only thing on the island except the lunatic asylum and the
leper establishment. Leprosy, in which the limbs decay and are
eaten away piecemeal by incurable sores, is always prevalent in
Cape Town : it was brought from the East by the Dutch slaves
from their East Indian colonies. The rabbits were very wild and
there were a f^w snakes and penguins about. A sea-bird of a rare
sort was shot by George ; it has been prepared at the museum in
Cape Town and sent home. We had lunch in a house belonging to
Dr. Biccard, of the lunatic asylum, in which there are about 130
patients. At about 5 P.M. we went on board the steamer and
came back to Cape Town at 7 P.M. Others went up Table Mountain,
starting with Colonel Owen of the Eoyal Artillery by the 7 A.M.
train to Wynberg, eight and a quarter miles out. This is the
oldest and shortest line in the colony : original shareholders receive
30 per cent, on their money. Arrived at the station we met Mr.
Gamble, the engineer of the New Waterworks, and drove with
him through Constantia to the back or south side of Table
Mountain. We saw some of the celebrated vineyards here : the
vines were brought over by the Huguenot refugees in 1685, and
the grapes are as good as any in the world ; but most of the wine is
very carelessly made. The grapes are picked with earthy particles
on them, and the wine is pressed from grapes of all conditions
and kinds, and doctored alike with spirit and water. Some good
wine is made at Constantia from grapes dried almost like raisins ;
but it is more a liqueur than a wine, and not more than 36,000
gallons of this are made annually. The Cape Colony produces a
larger amount of wine than any other British possession — in fact
more than all the rest put together. In the year 1875 the quantity
of wine produced was returned as 4,455,000 gallons (about the
quantity now produced by Australia), and of spirit distilled from
wine, 1,067,000 gallons. Since that time the produce has certainly
increased in quantity, and cannot be less than 6,000,000 gallons,
and another million and a quarter gallons of grape spirit. The
export of wine from the Cape during 1883 was, however, only
6,353 gallons of Constantia, valued at 2,371/., and 115,499 gallons of
ordinary wine, valued at 21,474/. The soil and climate are peculiarly

328 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

fitted for the cultivation of wine : but the introduction of foreign
capital and enterprise is wanted : and native labour here is far
dearer than present wages in the south of Europe. Chemical
analysis shows that in every constituent for the production of wine
the Cape grape-juice is peculiarly and exceptionally rich, but care
in the preparation and better methods of cultivation are wanted.
To this end the Cape Government have recently introduced an
expert from one of the best wine-growing stations in Gennany.

We began to climb Table Mountain on foot at 9 A.M. ; the path
at first is easily traceable over heather and stones ; but it was
rather hot work, as the ascent was steep and there was no shade.
We arrived at the " camp " (the place where the engineer and his
men had encamped when surveying the mountain), and the cross
road over the stream at noon, and there halted by the spring and
lunched. The water of this stream and many others will be utilised
in the New Waterworks. On Table Mountain there is deposited a
very large amount of moisture from clouds and rain, which at
present is wasted as far as the town at its foot is concerned ; this
it is proposed now to utilise, and it is estimated that the supply
will be sufficient also for the villages of Wynberg and Constantia,
through both of which the pipes will pass. From here on up the
kloof to the top takes about one hour and is also a steep climb.
The top itself is an immense and absolutely bare plateau of rock
weather-worn, and on the north side, precipitous. It is 3,502 feet
above the sea, or about the same height as Snowdon. Standing
on Maclear's cairn which marks the loftiest point, there was a fine
view all round ; looking to the south we saw False Bay, the
Muisenberg, the Hottentot hills and the crawling and wrinkled
sea ; turning round and looking northwards there was a curious
effect of white fog. This was hanging like so much white fluflfy
cotton-wool all over Cape Town, but under the lee of Robben
Island there was a great rent in the white flufif. We then walked
to the kloof and came straight down the steep and stony path
which leads thence to Cape Town, arriving at the bottom at 6 P.M.
By this time all the fog had disappeared oflf Table Bay; a few
white clouds however were still hanging round the Lion's Head.
The Bacchante arrived and anchored in Table Bay at 7.30 P.M.
having left Simon's Bay at noon. She did the fifty-three miles
round under steam.

Feb. 26th. — After breakfast went to see the Museum and the
Grey Library : a fine building, at the end of the Botanic Gardens,

1881.

IN THE CAPE TOWX LIBRARY.

329

with handsome pillared portico. In the Library are some very fine
old books, especially early histories of the Cape Colony, which were
given by Sir George Grey when he left the Cape for New Zealand.
Doctor Hahn, the librarian, who has spent many years among the
various native races of South Africa, showed us many photographs
of the various tribes of Bushmen, Hottentots, and Kaffirs, and also
told us in conversation many most interesting things.

AT TABLE BAY.

DATS.

WlHD.

Texpkbature.

Sea.

Air.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon

6 p.m.

Feb.

Variable 1-2

27S.

N.W.21, S.E. andS. 7-6

S.E. 2-6 and variable

March

Variable 1

Variable 1-2

N.W. 1-2

S.E. 2-4

•S. 3-8

6S.

S. 7-9

S. 7-8

[South Africa rises in a series of broad terraces or steps from the
sea. On the coast the uplands average not more than 200 feet,
fifty miles inland comes the broad terrace of the Lange Berge,
then 100 miles from the sea the great ridge of the Black
Mountains, averaging 3,000 feet in height. Beyond them extends
the table-land of the Karroo (or " dry " land), which is supposed to
be the bed of a large ancient lake. Further inland this rises again
into another plateau by the Orange River, until it dies away into
the great table-land of the interior of South Africa, at an average
height above the sea of 4,000 feet. There is a marked diflference
between the climate of the east and west coasts ; the winter of the
west is wet and inclement, that of the east cold, dry, and bracing ;
the summer of the west is dry and salubrious, that of the east
wet and stormy. South Africa thus includes a variety of climates
and totally dissimilar tracts of country ; so also does it of races.
Roughly speaking, there are no Negroes south of the equator. The
whole of this portion of Africa, from the equator and the Victoria

330 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

Nile downwards to the Cape, is inhabited by three perfectly
distinct indigenous races, (1) the Kaffirs, (2) the Hottentots, who
occupy the extreme south and south-west corner of the continent,
and (3) the Bushmen.

1. " Kaffir " is the Arabic for " heathen," and is the term of
reproach applied by the Arabs, who held the coast before the
arrival of the Portuguese in 1497, to the small section of the
great family of the Bantu tribes with whom they came in contact.
This great Bantu race numbers one-quarter of the population of
Africa, and have beeu estimated to be at least eighteen millions in
all. They are a grey slatey-coloured people, and were impelled from
the north and north-eastern parts of the continent by the pressure
caused by the inroads of the Hamites from Western Asia. All
their traditions point to the north as their home ; there their chief
great divinity is supposed to reside, and to the north are turned
the faces of their dead when laid in the grave. The wave of
population has continually rolled southwards from the central parts
of Africa which are now again also apparently over-crowded. The
Bantu clans were preceded in their migrations by the Hottentots,
and these again by the Bushmen.

The Bantu tribes may be divided into three great groups ;
(a) Kaffirs, (b) Betschuanas, and (c) Damaras.

(a) Those on the eastern ooast, or Kaffirs proper, extend from the
Zambesi southward to Cape Colony. They are tall, dark brown,
active, and well made, inclining to a pastoral life more than to
agriculture. They live mainly on animal food, and their clans are
stronger, more spirited and intelligent than those of the other two
groups. Their herds are their all in all to each clan ; and cattle-
stealing has grown so universal as to have acquired a certain
political significance. The land is of course all " nationalised : "
that is to say it belongs to the tribe or clan> and cannot be parted
with by the chief as his own private property ; private property in
the soil is not recognised beyond actual possession. Every one sows
his com wherever he can find a convenient spot. All the wealth of
a Kaffir is counted in.cattle and wives ; a woman is equivalent to
ten head of cattle. When the Kaffir has secured ten head of cattle
he exchanges them for a wife, of whom he may have any number if
he can afford to keep them. Each wife must have a separate hut. The
marriage laws are very rigid ; adultery is visited with death ; no
man may marry without the chiefs permission, and never a blood
relative. To this fact and to the total absence of alcoholic drinks

1881. NATIVE RACES— KAFFIRS. 331

amoDg them — in Ketchwayo's reign the sale of rum was prohibited
— their splendid physique is doubtless in a measure due. These
eastern coast KaflBrs embrace the Zulus, Pondos, Swazis, Tembns,
Matabeles, Fingus {i,e, ** helpless people in search of service " an
inferior clan, conquered by the Zulus seventy years ago), and
others. As a rule, however, they all possess great physical endur-
ance, and offer strong passive resistance to all injurious influences.
The younger Kaffir men are described as restless, turbulent and
boastful, and very reckless ; they have a strong love of liberty and
independence, but are readily obedient to their chiefs ; and gener-
ally speaking they are good-natured. They have plenty of sagacity
and acute wits, and are capable also of patient attention ; are frugsd
and temperate, and observe much decorum and cleanliness. It is
stated that any one who falls unarmed into the hands of the enemy
is never put to death, and that they have a proverb, " We must not
let even our enemies die of hunger." The coast Kaffir tribes are far
more highly organised than the central ones. Each village or kraal
contains forty or fifty families under a head-man elected by the
villagers. These village chiefs are under a tribal chief, and form
his councillors : a leopard's skin is the insignia of rank. The clan
chieftainship is hereditary, but generally the son whose mother is
of the richest and oldest family is nominated by his father to
the succession ; the two eldest sons are always debarred from such
right. Bribery and corrupt practices are extremely prevalent in
the administration of justice ; in commercial transactions they are
honourable and trustworthy wherever they have not been deceived
by whites. The chiefs revenue consists of contributions of cattle,
first-fruits, and fines. With the Zulus death is the common
punishment for all offences.

The religious beliefs are much the same in all three groups of
the Bantu tribes : they play round fetichism and supernatural spirits,
who are in some mysterious way connected with the spirits of dead
ancestors, charms, and sorcery. The Kaffirs circumcise all their
male children and shave their heads, leaving a ring of hair on the
boys and a tuft on the girls ; many of the women are tattooed.
They reckon time by the moon ; they have no written characters,
though their language appears to be the remains of something far
beyond that of any savage nation. Every child has a name given
him at birth and another at adult age, usually some honourable title
according to prowess or ability. Blacksmiths, who smelt copper
and iron for ornament, or for axes, hoes, and spears, are held in great

332 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

honour, though this art is quite unknown among the interior tribes.
Their basket-work is exceedingly good ; and pails, earthenware
bowls, knives of ivory for scraping the skin, snufiF-boxes, and other
articles made by hand are abundant.

The profession of doctor is hereditary ; there are several kinds ;
" smelling doctors " for detecting witches ; " handling doctors " who
rub and give medicine, cup, and set limbs ; and simple " physic
doctors." The office of " rain-maker " is also hereditary ; so is that
of the seer and prophet, of whom there are large numbers ; but
apparently there are no priests, though sacrifices are offered to
the spirits to avert evil, to procure blessings, and as thank-offerings.
There is a great national feast of first-fruits in January, and one
to the spirit of the king's father each year. They have a great
many opinions regarding uncleanness resembling those of the
ancient Egyptians (not eating wild pigs, hippopotami, crocodiles,
and certain beasts and birds), and they swear by the life of the
king or by the manes of their forefathers.

When a chief dies his household utensils are burnt or broken
and buried with his body, which is generally interred in a sitting
posture. The Zulus sometimes burn and sometimes bury the
bodies of the dead ; others are left exposed in the bush to be
devoured by the hyaena, which is held to be a sacred animal.

Dreams are ascribed to spirits ; the departed spirits of their
fathers and of their great chiefs are believed to exercise an
influence over the living, and sometimes to appear in the form of
serpents to their descendants : serpents also are sacred animals.
Ancestral spirits are regaled with sacrifices — cattle, goats, beer
and snuff — and they are invited to eat; they occupy the same
relative position in the other world as they did in this. All failure
or success in war is ascribed to the humour of the spirit of the
chiefs ancestor. But generally the attention of the spirits is
limited to their own family, and of a chief to his own kraal or clan.
They are very fond of dances, which are dramatic and generally
accompanied by songs, some of them so old that the words are not
understood by the natives themselves ; they are sometimes sung in
parts, the women sitting on the ground moaning and wailing, and
the men dancing away, shaking the earth with their stamping and
wheeling in armed groups from side to side brandishing assegais.

The coast KaflSrs at the beginning of this century were divided
into patriarchally governed clans, like the Scotch Highlanders a
century before them, or like our own Saxon forefathers when they

1881. NATIVE RACES— ZULUS. 333

came over from Germany and established the various Saxon tribes in
this island. They had no great paramount over-lord till Chaka
arose in 1813. He marshalled and disciplined his own clan with
such success, that in a few years all the south-eastern coast from the
Limpopo to Cape Colony owned his supremacy. Every male belonged
to one or other of the three classes into which his army was divided ;
these were veterans over forty, men, and lads, the first two classes
distinguished by rings on their heads. About one-half the available
force, nearly 50,000 warriors, was kept in constant readiness for
battle. Each regiment consisted of from six to eight hundred men,
commanded by a captain, lieutenant, and two sub-lieutenants.
Soldiers were kept apart from their wives and children, and only
such were allowed to marry as the king chose ; they received no pay,
but were fed by him during active service. Each barrack town was
garrisoned by a regiment and fortified with palisades, and the king
used to pass a month in each. The soldiers were armed with assegais
four feet long, which they could aim well with up to sixty paces, but
not beyond. Chaka added a short stout spear for close combat, and
a club. Their shields of ox-hide were as long as the men were tall.
After twenty-five years' sway Chaka was murdered by his brother,
who in his turn was murdered by Dingaan, another brother.
Dingaan was succeeded by Panda as paramount over-lord of the
coast Kaffirs, and he was succeeded by his son, Ketchwayo.

Several of Chaka's under-lords- caught his spirit, and by- force of
character, ability, and adoption of his military methods, discipline,
and drill, set oflf with their clans and carved out for themselves
over-lordships over other Bantu tribes. Moselikatsi, for instance,
a Zulu clan chief, whose tribe originally inhabited what is now
Natal, after being reduced to submission by Chaka, became one of
his generals, crossed the Drakenberg and occupied what is now the
Transvaal, dispossessing the unwarlike Betschuanas, and establish-
ing an independent over-lordship there. When the Boers defeated
Moselikatsi, the Betschuanas hailed them as deliverers. He, how-
ever, marched north with his Zulus and ultimately settled in the
hilly country midway between the Limpopo and the Zambesi,
forming there the Matabele kingdom, over which his successor
Lo-Benguela, proclaimed king in 1870, still rules, and keeps up
the traditions of the founder of this over-lordship; where every
able-bodied man is a soldier and bound by strictest fealty to his
chief, to whom he owes his life, his cattle, and his all.

Another of Chaka's generals went north along the eastern coast,

334 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881

and reduced all the clans between the Limpopo and Zambesi to his
sway. This is the Zulu over- lordship of Gasa, which extends from
Delagoa Bay coastwise to the borders of the Matabele kingdom.

(b) The second group of the Bantus or Kaffirs are those of the
interior or plateau. These subsist rather on a vegetable diet and
are of a softer and more passive temperament than their kindred
on the eastern coast. The Basutos and'Betschuanas belong to
this group. The latter are the most numerous and widespread of
the plateau tribes. The lai*ger tribes contain 15,000 people, and are
just on the border-line between nomads and agriculturists. Each
tribe is named after a certain animal, which it reveres and never
eats. The tribes are divided into numerous clans, each under an
hereditary head-man ; his authority is nominally absolute, but the
under-chiefs of towns or villages sit in parliament with him, and freely
offer their opinion. The Betschuanas have regular social grades
in each tribe, the well-bom, the rich, and the low-bom, or vassals.
All their land is common property, and the chief cannot alienate
it. They are strong and well built physically, but, as a rule, are
lazy and cowardly, though some are said to show more intelligence
than the ordinary European peasant. Like all weaker races, the
Betschuanas are more crafty than the eastern coast Kaffirs. They
have little regard for tmth and honour, and are able to embellish
a story excellently well. They practise circumcision ; their priests
are doctors and manage the weather, and also understand the
influence of the stars, prepare charms, and superintend the
burying of the dead — who are placed in the grave in a sitting
posture, looking towards the north. In their poorly- watered country
rain seems the giver of all good. The spirits of their ancestors
are connected in some mysterious way with an invisible being.
They are fond of dancing, at which the women and children clap
hands, but do not sing; and the men use a small reed-pipe.
Naturally they are of a kindly though cunning disposition, and
readily acquire the language of the whites. Some of them are
industrious, persevering and sober : they are fond of gardening, and
pay more attention to agriculture than the eastern-coast E^ffirs ;
they carefully fence their fields, and their dwellings are kept very
neat. They have never been known to attack Dutch or English,
but only defend themselves when attacked. Their warfare consists
in treacherously surprising their enemy, and secretly carrying off
his cattle, rather than in open and courageous attack, or in any
regular combat; they steal freely from the missionaries. Their

1881. BASUTOS, BETSCHUANAS, DAMARAS. 336

clans stretch away inland north of the Orange River, and over the
west coast plateau north of Namaqualand. There the Kaffirs of
the plateau are generally held to form the third group of the
Damara Kaffirs, who have for the last 150 years been isolated as
well from their Central as from their Eastern kith.

(c) The Damaras are divided into two principal clans, which have
dwindled away into a number of smaller families, each containing
from 100 to 400 people, in a state of continual mutual hostility.
Few kraals contain more than five or six huts and 100 cattle ; and
every man with twenty cows considers himself independent. They
live in nomadic communities, roaming over an extent of 29,000
square miles, a territoiy nearly as large as Scotland, and on the whole
more fertile than Namaqualand ; but parts are very hilly, and the
rest consists of wide plains and thorny jungle : the days are some-
times exceedingly hot, the nights piercing cold. The whole land
is the common property of the nation, but the first party arriving at
any place has a right to remain there as long as they please. The
cattle are the common property of the clan — food as well as land is
thus ** nationalised." The authority of the chiefs is sacerdotal as
well as political. Kinship goes through the mother, to whose caste
the children belong ; but the eldest son of the favourite wife of the
chief succeeds him : wives often leave their husbands and choose
new ones : each builds her own hut. The chief blesses the oxen,
and his daughter is priestess, and sprinkles them with holy water
every morning. She takes care of the holy fire, which is always
kept alight in or near the chiefs hut. Particular trees or shrubs
are sacred to each family, and particular animals or cattle with
certain marks on their bodies. Prayers are offered to the dead :
they are buried in a sitting posture, with the chin resting on the
knees, and sewn up in an ox-hide, with their faces towards the north ;
and a heap of stones is reared over the grave. Frequent presenta-
tions of provisions are made to the deceased. Their Great Father is
buried in several places, at all of which he is prayed to. They have
great faith in amulets and witchcraft, but without the more strenuous
and elaborate arrangements of the eastern-coast Kaffirs. Circum-
cision is practised, and the boys' heads are almost entirely shaved :
they are fond of dances, many of which are mimicry of animals,
time to which is kept by music and chorus, hand-clapping, and
striking the ground. They are generally tall, upright, and well
made, but not over strong, of a pale slate colour, are very impulsive,
submissive like dogs, and court slavery, but lazy, heartless, and cniel.

336 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

Very few die Datural deaths : when useless and worn-out they are
killed by their relatives. Milk, usually sour, is the main article of
subsistence : they eat also flesh of oxen and game on festival occa-
sions, but usually live on vegetables, fruits, and seeds. The ladies
wear iron bracelets round their wrists and ankles ; their iron beads
of the size of a potato, frequently weighing 30 lbs., compel them to
walk slowly, which is one of the signs of high birth in Damaraland.
2. The Hottentots (estimated now to be about 50,000 only) are
separated from all these Bantu s, with whom they have no material
resemblances, by the great waterless Kalahari Desert. They are of
a pale yellow-brown colour, with bodies of medium size and small
hands and feet : and are great iiinners. In disposition they are
light-hearted, apathetic and very indolent, but are very fond of un-
couth dances, imitative of the habits of animals, apes, and bees,
which they perform to a monotonous chant. Primogeniture pre-
vails, and chieftainship is hereditary ; they live in loose federations
of village communities or kraals of 200 or 400 people, each under a
village captain ; with the huts in a circle round the cattlefold. All
the men of the kraal with the chieftain sit in council for justice.
Some of them are veiy honest, faithful, and truthful ; they are easily
led by plausible speeches, but stubborn when threatened, and have
very strong memories. They believe in a future life, and that the
spirit of the dead haunts the place where it left the body. The
Namaquas adore a being supposed to exist in every grave ; they
venerate their ancestors, and regard the moon with awe, judging
that it has the disposal of the weather : they measure time also by
lunar months, and have great faith in witchcraft and amulets, but
possess no idols, temples, or altars. Their seers and prophets, how-
ever, officiate at marriages and funerals, and there are doctors in each
kraal for men and cattle ; who use herbs and medicaments as well as
charms. They tattoo themselves, and name their children after wild
beasts. The Hottentots have been divided into three groups, con-
sisting of (a) those dwelling in Cape Colony, (b) the Roranas on the
north of the Orange River, and (c) the Namaqua, whose domain em-
braces the western portion of South Africa. Namaqualand may be
divided into three longitudinal sections. The first, the seaboard,
is sandy and waterless, of a volcanic origin, rough and sterile, hardly
giving life to a few stunted pines between the crags, but with a
gradually increasing elevation, with coarse grass and shrubs. The
second division rising eastward, is hilly and very rugged ; copper
abounds in every direction, the supply of this metal being almost

1881. NATIVE RACES— HOTTENTOTS. 337

inexhaustible. Occasional trees may be found here, and brush
wood is comparatively abundant. In the third or more eastern
portion of Namaqualand the downs become more wooded and
better covered with grass. Where the plateau is at an average
elevation of 3,000 feet above the sea, it is healthy but cold in the
winter, till it reaches on the extreme east the Kalahari Desert.
"Among the hills bordering on the table-land there are fertile
tracts, contrasting strangely with the surrounding sterility.
Nature seems to unfold in these oases all her charm and loveliness.
Deep basins of crystal water are formed among the mighty dark-
red rocks of fantastic shape, encircled by ferns and other beautiful
plants. So happily does the brook run over its rocky bed into the
valley, and so homelike is the murmur, that one might fancy one's
self back into some quiet nook in the Harz or Black Forest."

Angra Pequena (or " little bay "), 150 miles north of the Orange
River, is the only entrance into Central Namaqualand from the
coast : there is abundance of fish there. There is also a German
trading station, whence the route starts inland to the -German
mission of Bethany on the plateau, where Dr. Hahn's father was
for many years missionary.^ The Namaquas are warlike and

\ In the month of May, 1888, Lord Derby received at the Colonial Office a depu-
tation of South African merchants, and said that '* he could state in half a dozen
words what the actual position of affairs was as regards Angra Pequena. We had
not claimed the place itself as British territory; but we had cmimed a sort of
general right to exclude foreign Powers from that coast up to the Portuguese
territory. The German Government had made various inquiries into the nature of
our claims, but so far as the correspondence had yet gone he did not understand that
Germany had actually disputed those claims. He apprehended that the question
was not so much one of any intention on the part of the German Government to set
up a colony there as an inquiry upon their part whether we claim the possession of
the coast, and in that case whether we will give security to the Germans trading or
settling there, and, if we are either unable or unwilling to give them security, whether
we shall object to the German Government doing it themselves. With regard to Capo
Colony, he understood that some months ago the question was put to them by the
Colonial Office whether they were prepared to take over Angra requena and become
responsible for the maintenance of order there, and of course to pay the cost. At
that time they thought that their expenses were quite as great as they could con-
veniently bear, and refused to have anything to do with the matter. Within the
last few days he had put the question to them by telegraph, asking them whether in
the event of our determining to defend the claim of the British Crown to this
territory they would be prepared to take it over and to bear the cost and take the
responsibility of its administration. As the deputation were aware, there was a
Ministerial crisis in South Africa, and the new Government was only just formed,
and consequently they had asked for a little time to answer the question. He might
say that he did not shai-e the apprehensions which some people felt as to the desire
of the German Government to establish colonies in various parts of the world.
Colonization was not the German policy ; they believed that concentration was the
secret of their strength, and they were not at all disposed to weaken themselves by
occupying distant possessions in various parts of the world." A few montlis later the
German Government, having waited nearly a year and a half for an answer to a
definite question and getting no reply, formally annexed the territory, and all Damara-

VOL. I. Z

338 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

nomad, the purest both in blood and language of the Hottentots ;
the most mongrel in both respects are the Hottentots of Cape
Colony. The Hottentots, as well as the Bantu tribes, would seem
to be the ruined monuments of a greater past ; but the Bushmen
are a primaeval people, arrested by adverse circumstances at a very
low stage of development.

3. The Bushmen formerly reached north to the Zambesi, and
even beyond, but are now little more than nomads in the Kalahari
Desert, though some of them are held in servitude by the Betschu-
anas on its eastern borders. They have little or nothing in common
with the Hottentot race, and are scarcely regarded by Hottentots
or Bantus as human beings at all. They are probably an entirely
distinct race from either, and represent all that has survived of a
great primaeval African race, broken into fragments and driven into
corners by the successive floods of immigration of stronger races —
Hottentot, Bantu, and further north Negro ; just as a corresponding
fate has overtaken other primaeval pigmy races, the Lapps in
Europe, the Ainos, Veddahs, and Andamans in Asia, and the Eskimo
and Fuegians in America. They are thin, wiry and dwarfish ; their
average height is about four feet, their skin a yellowish brown, their
heads large, and eyes small ; they possess a *' monkey-like mobility of
countenance,with a wild, uncertain, cunning look ;" they have neither
cattle nor goats, only a few half-wild dogs. Apparently no tribal
arrangements exist, although from ten to fifty live together in
universal liberty, fraternity, and equality ; they have no words for
any numbers beyond two or three. They trap game, and use arrows
for shooting the antelope ; sling at birds, and make fire by twirling
a stick between the hands, the point moving in a hollowed place
in another horizontal stick. Their women dig up casual roots

land and Namaqnaland (both exclusively occupied by German missionaries), right up
to the edge of the Kalahari Desert on the east, and from the mouth of the Orange
River, the boundary of the Cape Colony, seven hundred miles northward to Cape
Frio, a territory nearly equal in area to the whole of British South Africa. The
Germans have taken the coimtry in hand with good heart, although not immindful
of the enormous difficulties that lie in their way. Their motto is "What has been
done can be done " ; and they point to Colorado, to Atacama, and to the sandy
steppes of Asia and America which have been converted into fertile tracts, as justi-
fying tlieir faith. At Hamburg the capabilities of the country are highly estimated :
iron and copper ore have long been known to exist in great quantities, and important
discoveries give hopes that coal also may be not far off A well-furnished expedition
has been fitted out to explore thoroughly the whole coast from the Orange River
upward to the northern frontier, and then to study the mineralogy of the country ;
this exploration will be extended inland in all directions, and will require time. But
only thus can we learn what advantages Germany may draw from this colony ; and
time, too, will show what effect will result therefrom to the neighbouring and
friendly Dutch republics of the Free State and the TransvaaL

1881. NATIVE RACES— BUSHMEN. 339

found in the desert, and gather insects for food : the more putrid
and pungent the odour of the food is, the better they like it : they
have voracious appetites, and can also go for a great length of time
without eating. " They dwell in clefts of the valleys, in caves of
the earth, and in the rocks ; " sometimes they dig a hole in the earth
three feet deep, and roof it in with reeds. The chief characteristic
of their language is a succession of clicks and clucking sounds like
monkey chatter, practically unpronounceable by the European
tongue, and uttered by drawing in the breath ; a great deal of mean-
ing is conveyed by the gestures accompanying these, by the grins the
speakers make, or the energy or emphasis they give them in utter-
ance. Some of these clicks were adopted by the Hottentots, the
next invading race from the north, and some also by the Bantu clans,
the third and last invading race. Whereas the Bushmen have six
such clicks, the Hottentots have four, and the Kaffirs only three.

Fetichism is the form their religious instincts take. To witchcraft
all evils and diseases are attributed. Two or three sorts of antelopes
and insects are held sacred ; the chief of these is said to be a cater-
pillar whom they adore for success in the chase. They roughly embalm
their dead, and lay them on their side in the grave : " death is only a
sleep " they say ; sometimes a pile of stones is raised to mark the spot.

Amongst all these races, Kaffirs, Hottentots, and Bushmen,
missionaries, both German and English, have now been labouring
for many years with the usual varying success and failure. Their
labour is the work of faith, and in some individual cases that
faith has been rewarded. But as far as the mass is concerned,
there is a great gulf fixed between our ideas and theirs, their
hopes and aspirations and ours. To the dim stirrings of their
imperfectly developed intellects Europeans are and must remain
in a great measure strangers. England and Englishmen can rule
native races, can turn them into good customers, into orderly
subjects, and into indifferent Christians — no better and no worse,
perhaps, than the majority of white men ; but neither they nor
their religion can ever hope to gain their entire sympathies, or affec-
tions, as peoples whom we consider inferior, and religions which we
consider false (Arab and Mohammedan, for instance), have been able
to do. The most strange fact, though the most certain in nature, is
the unequal development of the human race. If we look at the early
ages of mankind, we see by what painful steps and slow toil the
higher races have developed and emerged into civilisation ; and if
there is one thing more than another to which the grand law of

z 2

340 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

continuity will apply, it is to human progress. There are certain
stages through which society must pass in its onward march from
barbarism to civilisation ; the superior race may perhaps do some-
thing to accelerate the passage of the inferior through such stages,
though their ability to do even this has been greatly exaggerated by
the benevolent wish and hopes of a few ; but we have every reason to
believe that it is not possible for humanity to leap over these transi-
tion epochs and pass at once from pure savagery to free civilisation.
Nevertheless, the duty of the Englishman is clear : by dealing justly
with all these natives, by giving them fair play and protection, and,
above all, patient consideration, we shall, in good time, do some-
thing— be it much or little — towards elevating them.]

Lord Charles Scott, and also Captain Stephenson and Captain
Durrant, joined us in the Library and afterwards came to Govern-
ment House to lunch. In the afternoon Sir Hercules Robinson
drove us to Oude Molen to see Ketchwayo, the Zulu King, at the
farm where he is now kept, a few miles outside Cape Town. He
weighs 18 stone and is nearly six feet tall, large boned, but heavy
in the haunches, with enormous thighs and legs. In European
dress he does not look well, but he gave us his photograph in his
native costume, which is almost nothing at all, and we also gave
him ours. He told us through the interpreter how he longed to
be set free and to return to his own land : and how he had hopes
that this would now be permitted. He spoke quickly and with
much emphasis and dignity, waving his right hand and resting his
left on a long staff as tall as himself. He seems a blood-thirsty
old chap and said that " he wanted to wash his spears in the blood
of the Boers of the Transvaal, who were always encroaching on
him. The English restrained him and told him if he attacked the
Boers he would be attacking them. He then made up his mind
to attack them directly. Then came Sir Garnet Wolseley and
broke up his kingdom." " Now," says Ketchwayo, "let me go, and
I will walk through the Boers, who, you see, after all, are your
enemies and not friends as you supposed. You delivered them
from Sikukuni ^ too : and you baulked him of his vengeance upon

» Sikukuui was a cliief of the Bapedi clan of the Betschuanas, who had settled in
the country to the north-east of the Transvaal territory 200 years ago. In the early
part of tills century the Swazi Kafl5rs drove out the Bapedi, but eventually Sikukuni's
father reoccupied the country and conquered the Swazi. This occurred before the
Dutch arrived in the Transvaal district. The chief of the Swazi made over to the
Boers his nominal right to the land (then held by the Bapedi), a district about equal
in size to all England south of the Thames and Severn, for 100 head* of cattle. (By
Kaffir law no chief can alienate land belonging to his tribe.) In 1854 the Transvaal

1881. VISIT TO KETCHWAYO. 341

them. He and I would have made an end of them long since, had
you not held us back ; let me go and I will do it now." ^

Government tried also to purchase the right of his rival, Sikukuni's father, to the Bapedi
territory, but without success : and down to 1868 it appears not to have belonged to
the Transvaal ; in 1876 it was certainly claimed by that State. The immediate cause,
however, of the war between Sikukuni and the Boers was this. Johannes, an
under-chief of the Bapedi clan, became a Christian and settled in the Transvaal,
but afterwards returned to Sikukuni. The Dutch claimed him as a fugitive and
declared war, and the Swazi joined them against their old enemies. ITiey conquered
and killed Johannes ; but those who attacked Sikukuni's stronghold were repulsed
by that chief, and retired to Pretoria. Meanwhile he had entei-ed into alliance with
Ketchwayo. The British annexed the Transvaal in 1878, but Sikukuni stated that
he would not brook the interference of any white men with his affairs. In November,
1879, Sir Garnet Wolseley, after Ketchwayo 's defeat, proceeded against Sikukuni and
required him to acknowledge the Queen's supremacy and to pay 2,600 head of cattle
as fine, since the British Government had taken over bodily all territories claimed
by the Transvaal. Sir Garnet wrote : ** I do not desire to enter upon any question of
the original justice of the quarrel with Sikukuni. Unfortunately that quarrel came
to us as a heavy heritage we could not refuse from the Government of the South
African Republic. Sucn differences where savages are concerned cannot be settled
by any civilised method of adjustment. According to native ideas a difficulty can
only end in one simple way, by the confirmation of the ascendency of the stronger and
the subjection of the weaker. " Sikukuni wished to come to terms with the British,
but his under-chiefs dissuaded him. Sir Garnet moved 16 companies of infantry (of
the 21st and 94th Regiments), 450 mounted volunteers, 4 guns and 1,000 Swazi against
Sikukuni's kraal and stronghold. After taking it, he set up the authority of the
under-chiefs under a British magistrate. The most prominent of these under-chiefs
was Mampoer. In 1882 the British Government, changing its policy, restored
Sikukuni. But ho was unable to rally his old followers, having, according to Kaffir
ideas, lost his dignity by having been taken prisoner. Mampoer killed him. The
Dutch, to whom the Transvaal had now reverted, demanded Mampoer. He fled to
Mapoch, another chief of the Betschuanas, who was at w^ar with the Boers, in that
he refused to acknowledge their supremacy, though he had paid taxes to the
English, and wished to take their side in the Transvaal war. In 1883 Mapoch's
stronghold was blown up with dynamite, Mampoer captured by the Boers and
hanged, and Mapoch imprisoned for life, and his tnbe ''indentured" for five years.

* In the later years of King Panda, Zululand was distracted by the rival ambitions
of his sons. In 1861, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, Secretary for Native Affairs in
Natal, was sent by the Government of that Colony on a mission to induce the Zulus
to recognise some one of the sons as heir to the throne. Ketchwayo was chosen by
the nation, Panda, and the Natal Government, and acted as regent for his father till the
latter died in 1873. Then, at his request. Sir Theophilus went to Ulundi and crowned
Ketchwayo in the presence of the Zulu clans. During the first years of his reign he
was friendly with Natal, but after the annexation by England of the Transvaal a
material change in the relations of the two Powers took place. Ketchwayo had had
a boundary dispute with the Transvaal dating from 1861 ; after the annexation, his
enmity was naturally transferred to its successors. The question was referred to the
arbitration of three commissioners, by Ketchwayo and the Queen's Government : the
final award being reserved to Sir B. Frere as High Commissioner. In September,
1878, Sir Bartle I? rcre arrived in Natal and took up the consideration of the boundary
question and our general relations with Zululand. On 11th December he gave his
award and "ultimatum." The Zulus were to obtain the political sovereignty of the
disputed territory, but all farmers who had acquired lands therein, since 1861, were to
retain them ; certain refugees in Zululand who had raided over the British border
were to be given up ; and a fine of 500 cattle was to be paid for not having surrendered
them before when demanded by the Natal Government ; besides this it was demanded
that Ketchwayo should receive a British Resident (without whose consent he was never
to go to war), allow missionaries to live securely in his country, abolish the whole of
his military system and the laws restricting marriage. Twenty days were given for
reply ; but, none being forthcoming, Ix)rd Chelmsford advanced into Zululand in
three columns between the 11th and 14th of January, 1879. On 22nd January, two

342 CEUISE OF ILM.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

Ho says that if he went back to his own people, nothing would
induce him ever again to disobey the commands of his mother, the
Queen of England. To him, as to all the natives here, "the
Queen " represents an ideal English power, far oflF in the distance,
but whose real behests, when once clearly understood and plainly
given (it is said) they would no more think of disobeying or calling
in question, than civilised nations would disregard those of Heaven
or of the Almighty. All natives, the Basutos, Zulus, Betschuanas,
invariably profess their desire to come under "the Queen," in
preference to the Cape colonial authority: doubtless of course
in some measure because the colonial is the only one that really
pinches, or is felt to be disagreeably near. We went into a little
room, bare of all furniture, and there saw his four wives, weighing
each between sixteen and seventeen stone ; they were happily

engagements were fought. In the first, at Isandhlwana, 18,000 Zulus attacked the
camp of the first column, which was defended by one half of the force, the rest
having gone on with the General to the next camping ground. The British camp,
transport, and all the ammunition and artillery were taken, and about 1,000
English were slain, less than forty escaping over the Buffalo River. On the same
night the Zulus crossed the Buffalo and attacked the commissariat and hospital at
Rorke's Drift, held by one company of the 24th under Major Chard, KE., who
heroically defended it. The second column meanwhile, under Colonel Pearson,
defeated the Zulus, and occupied Ekowe, where they entrenched themselves. The
first column had to fall back into Natal and evacuate Zululand. The third
column was under the command of Sir Evelyn Wood. On the 12th March, a
company of the 80th Regiment were surprised at the Intombi River and all killed ;
and on the 20th March, the cavalry and natives of Wood's column suffered a grievous
loss at the Zloblane mountain : but on the following day the whole Zulu army of
24,000 men attacked the British at Eambula and were defeated. On the 3rd April,
Lord Chelmsford having received reinforcements from England, relieved Colonel
Pearson at Ekowe, and on the 4th July the battle of Ulundi was fought, and the
military power of the Zulu kingdom was finally broken to pieces. On the 28th August
Ketch wayo, who had fled to the bush, was taken prisoner through the treachery ofone
of his chiefs. On the Ist September, Sir Garnet Wolseley, who had arrived aa High
Commissioner, assembled the clan chiefs at Ulundi, and stated that ''the dynasty of
Chaka was for ever deposed." The country was divided into thirteen districts,
each under an independent chief, holding office by the direct gift of the Queen of
England ; a British Resident was appointed for Zululand, to whose arbitration they
were to refer their quarrels, and the importation of all arms was prohibited. And so
ended a war which Mr. Gladstone stigmatised as ** most monstrously unjust." On the
15th September, Ketchwayo arrived at Capo Town under escort and was confined in
the castle. " I am no longer a king," he told the Cape Ministers when they came to
see him, ** but the English I find^re a great people, they do not kill those who have
fought with them. I hope the great Queen will pardon me and allow me to return
to my country, and give me a place to build myself a kraal where I may live. I am
sorry I did not follow the advice of my father Panda on his death-bed : he told me
to live at peace with the English and never make war with them." In the summer
of 1882 he was brought to England. On the 25th August he lauded again at
Cape Town, just three years after his former landing, but this time ** dressed in a
fashionably cut double-breasted frock coat, wearing a Lincoln and Bennett of the
severest gloss, and bearing in his hand a silver-tipped walking cane, given him by
the Prince of Wales." At the beginning of the year 1888 he was recrowned at Ulundi
by Sir Theophilus Shepstone : but his power was gone, discord and civil war ensued
among the chiefs, and in less than a twelvemonth Ketchwayo was slain.

1881. VISIT TO KETCHWAYO. 343

squatting on the ground, wrapt in Scotch plaids. Even thus there
was a certain dignity about them, and one in particular had a very
intelligent face. A Zulu servant of the King was brewing Kaffir
beer — which is a sort of mash made in a copper from meal : the
grain, maize or millet, is wrapped in a mat and left to sprout ; it
is then ground into meal and having been boiled is placed in a large
pot to ferment. On the top of the man's head was pointed out to us
the peculiar black indiarubber-looking ring. The right to wear
this is given to the Zulus by their chiefs when they are of proper
age to be married. The rings are made of a sort of fungus that
grows on trees ; and are of the size and look of an ebony walking-
stick. Fibre and string are used to render them firm ; these are
woven and twisted in with the hair on the man s head and well
greased with bullock's fat : there the ring remains for the rest of
their lives, and the hair inside and outside the ring is shaved oflF.
The house is completely unfurnished, and the bare boards of every
room are left uncovered, as this is the state in which they prefer to
live. In the hall over the door there is a framed engraving
of the Queen. The Government gave 4,000Z. to purchase this
house and the small farm around it, on which there are a few
cattle for Ketchwayo to amuse himself by looking after. He eats
an enormous quantity of meat each day, and as he suffers from
rheumatism through want of exercise, his quota of rum has been
doubled. A little further on live the other two ex-kings of the
Kaffirs, Langalibalale ('*the Burning Sun *'), and Kreli, the clan chief
of the Galekas. The latter was one of the leaders in the Kaffir war of
1850-53, and again invaded the colony in 1877, since which time
he also has been confined in the same honourable captivity : 530/.
annually are paid to support the former chief and his two wives.
Langalibalale, when first brought from Natal in 1873, was confined
on Robben Island but transferred here in 1875, and promised that
if he behaved well he might be sent back to Natal. He is now
old and broken down. Then we drove back to town. Colonel
BuUer arrived from England to-day on his way out to the front,
and dined at Government House. There was a cricket-match
to-day at Wynberg ; Squadron versiis the Western Province Club.
The Bacchante furnished six out of the eleven for the Squadron.
The Squadron scored seventy-two runs in the first innings and fifty-
two in the second. Western Province made seventy-five in the
first innings, fifty-three in the second, and five wickets to fall : so
we were well beaten. Every evening after dinner we can hear the

344 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

news-boys with their rival (Jx-horiis parading the streets, and

shouting out the latest telegrams from the seat of war. One

enterprising editor, when he has received any special intelligence,

sounds a great bell at his office to gather purchasers.

Feb. 27ih. — We went to St. George's Cathedral with Sir Hercules

Robinson to morning service. A south-easter began to blow at

midnight, and Table Mountain in the morning was covered with

cloud. It lulled towards midday. At about 6 p.m. Sir Hercules

received a telegram announcing the defeat of the British by the

Dutch at Laing's Nek, and the death of Sir George Colley and

many British soldiers that morning on Majuba Hill.

" *How are the mighty fallen ! '
Tell it not in Gath,

Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon,
Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
Ye heights of Maju]»a,
May n« dew nor rain light upon you
Nor your fields of increase ;
For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away.

* *

How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle !

Slain upon thy heights : —
How are the mighty fallen,

And the weapons of war perished !"

Feb, 2Sth. — Though feeling little inclined for any excursion, yet
in order not to disappoint those who had kindly made arrange-
ments for us, we left by special train at 8 A.M. with Mr. Southey,
Prince Louis of Battenberg, Lord Charles Scott, Evan-Thomas,
the doctor, and Mr. Newton, for Durban Boad, where we arrived
about twenty minutes after starting, and found Mr. Frank Duminy
waiting with Cape carts for us. These are light carts on two
wheels, drawn by two little horses with the pole between them,
curricle fashion, and covered with a hood to shield off the sun ;
there are two seats inside, on each of which two persons can sit ;
the hinder seat is sometimes reversible, so that its occupants
can either sit English dog-cart fashion, or else looking forward in
the same direction as those on the front seat. They are very
comfortable for the country roads ; plenty of air comes in at the
sides, which are merely curtains that can be furled or let fall
fore and aft, as occasion may arise to keep the dust or rain
out. We drove up in these to his father's farm — a Dutch
homestead, behind a grove of fine old trees, approached over a
dell, down to which the ploughed fields sloped, with their fresh-
turned brown earth. Here a hospitable breakfast was prepared

1881. BOK SHOOTING IN COBURG COUNTY. 345

for us at 9 A.M., the old gentleman's four sons, as well as himself
and his wife, doing the honours of the table. In the parlour were
portraits of their ancestors, and of the old Huguenot admiral
who, first of the family, settled at the Cape after the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes. After breakfast we mounted the Cape
carts again, and drove still further into Coburg county, to the
farm of Mr. Oostersee, son-in-law of Mr. Duminy. There we all
mounted ponies, and rifle in hand, rode over the hill-side, now bare
of crops but here and there covered with copses and other growth,
in search of bok ; the ponies are trained to pull up sharp and
stand steady, while aim is taken by the rider. But it was too
late in the day for us to see much game ; the best time, of course,
is the early morning. It was very hot riding in the sun, too hot for
the bok to lie, and we only sighted about a dozen altogether. It
was astonishing to see one or two shots made by *'Uncle" Duminy,
who appeared in scarlet, and looked just like an old English
hunting squire. They all begin to shoot thus when quite children.
We got some shots at partridges and rabbits, and after enjoying
some huge water-melons at Mr. Oostersee' s, which were as refresh-
ing as anything we ever tasted, we rode back to the other farm by
5 P.M., where a regular dinner was spread. No one could have
spoken more feelingly of the terrible news we had received the
day before, than did our excellent and worthy hosts. We drove
back to Durban Road, and returned by special train to Cape Town,
arriving there at 8 P.M.

March Ist. — Mail day, every one writing all the morning. In
the afternoon we all went to a garden party, given by Mr. Alex-
ander Van der Byl, at Wynberg. Driving there by Rondebosch,
the lanes were just like those in England, the same trees and
hedges. The house is prettily situated under the cUfF of Table
Mountain, and from the terrace in front there is a fine view away
over the woods to the Hottentot hills beyond. There were many
officers there from the squadron, and several of these joined in
games of lawn-tennis and archery, which were arranged in a large
paddock, at the end of a shady walk through the flower-garden
and shrubbery. We drove afterwards to the ** Vineyard," the
Governor's country house, where there are very extensive gardens,
in which we wandered about and picked any amount of flowers
and fruit, and so back to town. Colonel Montgomery, of the
Scots Guards, dined at Government House.

March 2nd, — Prince Louis left early to return to the InconstarU

346 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

at Simon's Bay. After breakfast Mr. Southey and Mr. Laing
(Minister of Public Works) took us by special train out to Mulder's
Vley (or temporary shallow lake) to visit an ostrich farm. The
run, about forty miles out, was through a prettier country than
any we have yet seen here, though it was very hot, as this is the
Cape midsummer, and is equivalent to August in England. John
Scott joined us from the ship. We saw a flock of between two
and three hundred ostriches which are tended by boys with pronged
and forked sticks ; by presentmg the stick at the ostrich and catch-
ing his neck in the fork a boy can hold at bay and manage even
the most savage old cock. Curiously, they never raise or lower
their throat out of the prong ; and they do not kick out behind. If
the ostrich used the ordinary bird-weapon he would be an insignifi-
cant foe, for the long neck towering eight or nine feet in the air is
as weak as it is flexible, and he can accomplish no dangerous
"peck." His tremendous legs, however, more than serve him
instead, being armed with two toes, whose homy tips " can cut and
rip like cold chisels." With these the stronger birds have a vicious
way of striking out in front, straightforward at their opponent, and
inflict a terrible bruise and wound at the same moment. Horses
have their flanks torn open or are knocked over by the blow, whilst
men, spite of all precautions, frequently receive severe injuries.
There are several ready ways, however, of avoiding the furious on-
slaught. The farmer throws himself flat, and then the ostrich
merely dances on his body. But the best defence consists in the
long forked pole, which entraps the bird's neck as he rushes
forward, and then he can be held at arm's length until his
adversary gains the fence. Though this, whether of stone or
wire, is never raised higher than the breast of the ostrich, he
justifies his ancient reputation for foolishness by not attempting
to raise his long legs and step over. His magnificent-looking
wings are utterly useless for the purpose of flying, but he makes a
grand exhibition and agitation of them when angry. Except at
the mating period, however, he is as harmless as the female bird,
and can be readily driven in flocks. When the ostriches' eyes are
covered they are quite quiet.

The birds begin to feather when eight months old, and their crop
of feathers inpro ves in value with each season. At three years of age
the young ostrich becomes bright red on his legs and beak, and this
is a sign of puberty ; they are then paired off in pens for breeding,
and each pair will sit on seventeen eggs at a time. Each hen lajrs

1881. OSTRICH-FARMINQ. 347

about twenty eggs in August. The male bird takes the gi-eater
share in the duty of incubation, and is the more careful in regard
to the eggs. If the female is very careless the male bird has to do
double duty. He occasionally uses gentle persuasion in the form
of vigorous kicks, in order to induce his more indolent mate to
take a fair share of the common work. The female sits more
usually in the day time, and the male during the night. We saw
one female ostrich sitting on her eggs in one of the pens, and
the old cock walking about keeping guard over her, very jealous
and" savage. The harvest of feathers is taken about every six or
eight months oflf the tail and wings of the bird ; they are nipt or
cut, not plucked, as they come to maturity. The twelve precious
feathers from each side are severed with a sharp knife an inch above
the skin, and only a few are taken at a time in order to avoid all
chance of injuring the wing by stump inflammation. The value
of the feathers varies, of course, according to size ; the best sell
at from 30Z. to 4iOl. sterling per pound in Cape Town market :
these are the choicest white feathers taken from a number of
birds. The white feathers oflf one full-grown male ostrich some-
times fetch as much as 12i. A pound weight contains about
eighty feathers, and as ladies in Europe pay one or two guineas
each for the best, some considerable profit must be made outside
the expenses of bleaching and dyeing before they reach their
ultimate purchasers. There are many variations in the texture
and beauty of the male ostrich plume and that of the female.
Dusky grey and brown in colour are always less valuable. Con-
noisseurs also detect a distinction between the feather from a wild
and one from a domesticated bird. The so-called " tame " feather
is somewhat stiffer, has " galleries " in the quill, and will not retain
dressing and curl so readily. Still, the demand for them increases,
and even if the supply become quadrupled within the next few years,
there seems no risk of their becoming a drug in the market. In
1869 there were eighty domesticated ostriches in Cape Colony ; ten
years later the census showed the enormous increase of 32,247,
and though that rate of progress has scarcely continued under the
disturbed conditions of more recent years, it has still been great
In proportion as the wild ostrich diminishes in numbers under the
attacks of savage tribes, who, unthinkingly, destroy the eggs as well
as the birds, the domesticated ostrich will become more valuable,
and gradually come to represent the species as the original type of
greater elegance and beauty fades away.

348 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

Ostrich-farming is now taken up in Algeria, South America,
and Australia. The Cape, however, supplies three-fourths of the
demand for feathers. Ten years ago the ostrich-feather industry
in Cape Colony was practically unknown. Now the the value of the
produce from domesticated birds exported to England is nearly a
million sterling a year, and the capital embarked in the industry
must be at least five times that sum. At present the enormous
increase of the supply has not greatly aflfected the demand. Ostrich
feathers are divided into twenty-two grades or qualities. Of these,
four, including all the most valuable kinds, have fallen very con-
siderably in value as compared with the quotations of ten years ago.
Five of the inferior kinds are very decidedly higher in price, while
the remainder are pretty much the same, owing to the superior
manipulation and bleaching now applied to ordinary feathers.

The first essential for ostrich farming issuflScient roaming ground
for the shy, cunning birds, and the next is strong, though not high,
fencing. It is found that about 600 acres of favourable soil will
keep eighty ostriches, but not more than fifty can be kept on the like
extent of "hard karoo" or "sour grass," since this is deficient in
alkalis. The birds dislike tree shade, and sufier far less than sheep
or horses from the sharp and sudden variations of cold and heat
peculiar to the climate. Under some conditions of veldt, or soil,
they may be herded in large flocks, without shelter or artificial
food ; but more often they require a supply of bone-dust and a diet
of mealies or Indian corn, maize, or barley. It is usual, also, to
separate them into what may be called families, one male ostrich
and two or three hens — at all events during the nesting season.

Herding ostriches is only with difficulty made to pay, as when
the birds ought to be feeding hardest (that is in the early morning
and evening), they are being driven to the feeding-grounds and
back. Besides this the Hottentot boys go to sleep in the veldt,
and have an awkward way of bringing the birds home several short
in number. This entails days of hard riding for the farmer under
a scorching sun to recover his property. If he accomplishes this
he is lucky ; but it is a remarkable fact that, although the birds
may be lost in full plumage, when they are found again it is no
uncommon thing to find them featherless, in many cases with all
their feathers dragged out, and thus ruined for ever. When the
feathers are pulled out, it is the work of the Hottentot or Kaffir ;
but sometimes the birds are found carefully clipped — ^there are
such things as dishonest neighbours. Ostrich-farming does not

1881. OSTRICH-FARMING. 34d

afford a good prospect to men of small capital. In addition to the
capital for fencing and land, a considerable sum is required for the
"stock." A male ostrich costs from 80/. to 100/., and half-grown
broods sell for 15/. each chick. Some of the best birds we saw are
worth 150/. a pair ; others, half grown, fetch only 10/. or 8/. The
cost of wire-fencing is very great, as in many cases the poles have
to be carted thirty or forty miles, and on the hard karoo the holes
for poles have to be blasted, as there are only about two inches of
soil over the solid rock in some places.

No small capitalist should attempt ostrich-farming. Two men
with a couple of thousands each may make a fair thing of it,
supposing they take a farm already fenced, but they will never
amass large fortunes; should they have to fence, the capital
required would be far more. The really good tracts of veldt
suitable for ostrich-farming are appropriated and belong to men
who have no intention of letting them. There is also a prejudice
against new-comers, all the best farms are wanted for the sons of
Dutch, German, or English already out there. It must be admitted,
moreover, that the risks and losses from disease, destruction of
eggs, and robbery by natives are important drawbacks ; drought
also annually kills thousands of ostriches. After two or three
months' drought the country becomes perfectly black and dried
up ; and, although the farmer may keep his birds going for some
time by artificial feeding, still the quantity of mealies, barley,
&c., the birds consume, will, if he has anything like a large number,
break any one but a wealthy man. And it has been satisfactorily
proved that the birds, when confined to artificial food, lose condition,
and their feathers, as a natural consequence, suffer. The mortality
amongst ostriches is very great. By disease, accidents, broken
legs, &c., the average loss is about 25 per cent, per annum. The
ostrich's leg, although very formidable in kicking, is most easily
broken. A small Kaffir boy can break an ostrich's leg with a
stone the size of a pigeon's egg, and on one occasion three birds'
legs were broken as they bolted, being frightened by a hare jump-
ing up among them. A Kaffir or Hottentot costs 30/. a year in
wages and keep. Probably in the future more will be done in
ostrich-farming by companies than by private adventurers.

This house used to belong to an old Dutch bachelor, called Abbas
Bey, and is beautifully clean and old-fashioned, with raised " stoep "
or step-platform on three sides, and farmyard around, now all used
for ostriches only ; they are under the care of Mr. Brinck, with w hom

350 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

we lunched. He very kindly let us take some feathers off the
ostriches, and carry away some eggs from the nests.

We returned by train at 3.30 P.M., by a diflferent route from that
by which we had come out, going back via Paarl, with its six miles
of vineyards, and Stellenbosch, a regular Dutch village where the
houses are chiefly built of wood : it was destroyed by fire ten years
ago, so that smoking in the streets is now forbidden.

Not so long ago it was the custom for all ministers of the Dutch
Reformed Church to be educated in Holland, but now the Dutch
have started a college of their own at Stellenbosch, where their
pastors may be educated. There is probably no country where the
clergy are more freely and more liberally supported. In nearly
every district the Dutch clergyman will have an assured salary of
three to five hundred pounds, a residence, extensive garden grounds,
presents " in kind " (wine, cheese, butter, mealies, grapes and stock) ;
and a standing bed and meal in every house in his district ; for
it is simply impossible to exaggerate the hospitality of the Dutch
yeomen. They are equally liberal in providing for the education
of their own children, for they have a shrewd notion of the value
of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

From Stellenbosch we passed on to Cape Town through pretty
scenery like that in some parts of Scotland. Railways in Cape
Colony cost 7,000f. a mile to make — more than three times what
they do in Buenos Aires. At one of the stations we saw a
great number of Malays, who looked uncommonly cheery and
bright, keeping some festival of their own. They are very fond of
holiday-making and picnics, and a happier lot never lived. They
work for money, not for its own sake, but for the pleasure it brings.
On returning trf*" Government House at 5.15 P.M. we had some
games of lawn-tennis in the garden with Mr. Osborne and other
officers from the ship.

March Srd. — At 10.30 A.M. a deputation from the Mohammedan
Malays, consisting of their priests and holy men, in beautiful
long silk robes and turbans, very picturesque and polite, came
to Government House and read an Address. There are a great
many of these Malays here, the descendants of the Dutch slaves
imported from their East Indian Empire. They carry on a
great part of the manual labour of the colony, and are a most
useful and well-behaved body of men ; the principal part of them
are bricklayers, plasterers, carpenters, and tailors. Nearly all the
coachmen and washerwomen in Cape Town are Malays, and so are

1881. CAPE TOWN— DOCKS AND BREAKWATER. 361

all the fishermen. They have more than one mosque here. After
they had left, came the mayor and municipality of Cape Town and
read another Address, and Eddy read a reply to them also.

At 11 A.M. we walked with Mr. Newton to the South African
College at the end of the avenue. This is the chief school here,
and English, Dutch, and German boys are all educated together.
The boys were drawn up in the uniform of their cadet corps and
went through some of their drills. Mr. Gill, the head-master, made
a speech and then took us through the class-rooms. Wessels, the
head boy, gave us an album with photographs of Cape Town ; then
we went outside in the courtyard and were photographed with the
hojs. In the afternoon we were to have gone off to the Bacchante,
but, as there was a strong southerly gale blowing, stayed another
day with Sir Hercules Robinson. We went for a walk in the town,
but there were such clouds of dust all over the place that we took
refuge in the garden and had some more lawn-tennis. Just outside
the gardens and at the bottom of the avenue are the foundations
for the New Parliament Houses; they are to cost 120,000/.

We have kept as quiet here as we could ; there have been no
balls and no entertainments of any sort, for neither the people nor
ourselves are at all in the humour for such things.

March Uh. — ^Wind still blowing strong from the south-east, and
everything smothered with the dust. Some of the oflBcers, who
came over from Simon's Bay and remained to lunch, said that
there was not a breath of wind on that side of the mountain;
which is odd, as that is apparently the side from which it is
blowing here.

In the afternoon we rode with Mr. Laing and Mr. Newton, first
to the docks and breakwater, which between them have cost nearly
half a million. The latter is not yet completed, but is intended to
run out so as to protect the anchorage in Table Bay from the
north-westerly gales, which prevail and blow into Table Bay in the
winter time {i,e. from May to October) just as the south-easterly
gales do into Simon's Bay in the summer time {i.e. November to
April). The consequence is that in the Western Provinces of Cape
Colony the rain falls in the winter months, while in the Eastern
Provinces the summer is the wet season, as each wind comes laden
with moisture, the *' black north-westers" from the Atlantic and
the south-easters from the Indian Ocean. In former years the
loss of life and property by shipwreck in Table Bay occasioned
by this on-shore wind was distressingly frequent, but now is

352 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

comparatively unknown. Vessels can sail or steam either behind
the breakwater or into one or other of the three commodious docks,
which are completely sheltered from the gale. The breakwater
is to be finished in 1886, but at present only 1,870 feet of it
are built; this is about half the length it is intended to be.
On to this we went and saw the waves and heavy swell breaking
up on its western side, and had a good blow, free from dust.

The Duke of Edinburgh laid the foundation stone of the Alfred
Graving Dock when here, as captain in the Galatea, 24th August,
1867 ; seven years before, when middy in the JEuryabis, he had
laid the first stone of the breakwater (the first public act of his
life), at the very time when the Prince of Wales in Canada was in-
augurating the Victoria Bridge at Montreal. The Alfred Dock is
400 feet long, ninety feet wide, with a depth of twenty-four feet
at high water over the sill ; it took three years to complete.
There is a second dry dock, 500 feet long and sixty feet broad,
that will take a vessel of twenty-seven feet draught (such as the
Bacchante or even larger), and the only dry dock of this size in Africa.
The Boadicea (our sister ship), 4,140 tons, lately re-fitted here.
We saw also a third graving dock under construction ; on this the
men were busily working. (It was formally opened by Sir Hercules
Robinson, October 20th, 1882, having cost 156,000/. to complete ;
the Union Steam Ship Company's B.M.S. Athenian cut the
ribbon and took up her position in the basin. The water was
pumped out in five hours. The dimensions of the dock are 539
feet at coping level, 500 feet at keel blocks, 90 feet wide at coping,
38 feet at bottom altars, and 68 feet at entrance. The depth of
water over the sill of the entrance at low water is 21 feet, and at
high water 26 feet at ordinary spring tides. In honour of the
Governor the new basin was named the Robinson Dock.)

The railway begins at these docks and runs right to the Orange
River, 570 miles away, and thence on to Kimberley, seventy miles
beyond ; and thus goods can be put on trucks alongside the vessels
when unloaded and taken straight away for trade into the interior.
The number of vessels docked at Cape Town in 1882 was 926,
registering a million tons.

These works gave us almost more satisfaction than anything else
we saw at the Cape, for here at least was shown some vigour and
enterprise. The grey Paarl granite of which they are constructed
will take a good polish, and several pieces, made into various
weights, &c., were sent to us afterwards by the Company,

1881, ROUND THE LION'S HEAD. 353

We then mounted and rode round the Lion's Head, stopping at
Captain Massingham's farm on the way to see the artificial hatching
of ostrich eggs. The " incubator" is ^, large wooden case, two yards
long and about the same in height, fitted up with wooden drawers.
Alongside stands a hot-water boiler from which the hot water is con-
ducted into a small reservoir at the top of each drawer. In these
the eggs lie in rows on perforated zinc, and are kept at an even
temperature of 103° Fahrenheit. At the bottom of each drawer
there is another small pan of cold water, to evaporate and keep
the air moist. We saw some young ostriches that had just been
hatched, something like little hedgehogs ; they had a queer, mother-
less look about them, as they squatted helplessly on the sand, after
having come into the world by such a strange machine-like fashion.
They don't peck up anything for three days, and then begin by
eating stones ; this seems to give them an appetite for better food.
Ostriches require to be very carefully dieted when kept in confine-
ment, otherwise they lose their health and their plumage, and do
not lay eggs. It is the opinion of many old ostrich-farmers that
the enormous mortality among ostriches of late years is owing in a
great measure to artificial incubation.

Some of the older birds were penned in the field below ; their
tails and wings had just been cropped and harvested.

We found it very windy and dusty riding round the Kloof; in
some places, where the road is excavated on the cliflF-side, the wind
was so strong that it seemed as if we and the horses, from which we
had dismounted in order to lead them, would be blown away ; and a
hail-storm of dust and small stones peppered us for ten minutes or so
as we passed the more exposed parts. We gathered some of the long,
thin, tapering leaves off the silver trees at one place. They are six
or seven inches long, and of a grey silvery colour, covered with silky
fluff and about an inch broad. You can paint views on them and
patterns, and they make capital book-markers. There are many
woods of these silver trees near Cape Town. They have the
look of willows in England with their leaves blown up by the
wind.

In the evening the captain took us to dine with Mr. Gill, the
Astronomer Royal, at the Observatory. We went first to the
equatorial and saw Venus, Saturn, and also the moon, through it ;
but the planets were nearly setting and were too low on the
horizon — more especially as the air was in rather a disturbed state,
the wind being still very high — for us to see them well defined.

vol.. I. A A

354

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1881.

After dinner we went into the grounds again and had a beauti-
ful sight of several nebulae and doable stars of the southern
hemisphere, of Eta Argus and Alpha Centauri ; we saw also the
transit instrument. It was very late when we drove back to
town.

March 5th. — There was a cricket-match this morning at Wynberg
between the Ba4xhante and the Diocesan College, in which we were
well beaten : Bacchantey first innings 76 ; Diocesans, first innings
116, second 103. At 3 p.m. we said good-bye to Sir Hercules and
Lady Robinson, who have been most kind to us during our stay here,

TABLE MOUNTAIN FBOM THE XLOOV BO AD.

and have had most of the gun-room up to the House for a day or
two each. We then walked down through clouds of dust to the
landing-place, at the end of Adderley Street, where we went oflF in
the steam pinnace to the Bacchante: Currey has had a rough
time of it all this week, going backwards and forwards as midship-
man in charge of her, with the picquet for liberty men, as forty^
eight hours' general leave has been given from all the ships of the
squadron and most of the men have come over holiday-making
from Simon's Bay to Cape Town. The gale bad been blowing

1881. AT TABLE BAY. 365

nearly all day, but in the evening freshened up and continued to
blow between seven and eight all night.

March 6th, — Southerly gale was still blowing, but the Bishop
(W. W. Jones) of Cape Town came off and preached at the morning
service on the main deck, on the "steadfast performance of duty
regardless of consequences." He stayed to lunch, and then we put
him ashore in the afternoon in the steam pinnace to the dockyard :
it was roughish and he got somewhat of a wetting.

Cape Town looks better from where we are lying at anchor in
Table Bay than from any point ashore. The grey, gaunt wall of
the Table Mountain, with its long flat summit, backs the whole ;
away to the right rises the more cone-like hill of the Lion's Face.
Here we are out of the way both of the smells and the clouds of
dust that are borne all over the town and are such a nuisance ashore.

March 1th. — Although the breeze was still pretty fresh, at 1 P.M.,
after morning school, Mr. and Mrs. Southey, and Mr. Duminy and
his sons, with a few other friends, came off to lunch. Afterwards
we fired a torpedo and a hand-charge from the steam pinnace, and
they went all over the ship, being especially pleased with the
engine-room. As the breeze again freshened in the evening they
got rather wet going ashore.

March Sth, — Weighed at 8.30 a.m. and proceeded under steam
out of Table Bay ; there was a slight breeze from the south-east at
the anchorage, but outside it was quite calm. We steamed close
under the Lion's Face and then dropped a target overboard and
fired at it. We had " expended quarters ammunition" by 12.30.
In proceeding round the Cape we found it a strong dead head- wind
from the south-east with a bit of a sea running, and so came in for
the consequent pitching. Sighted the squadron in Simon's Bay
at 7.15 P.M. Moored at 8 P.M.

[Although the Cape station is the only one between St. Helena,
2,000 miles to the west, and Mauritius, 3,000 miles to the east,
where British men-of-war can repair, coal and refit, it is absolutely
undefended : there is not a single gun or a single fort either at
Table Bay or at Simon's Bay. In time of war the docks at Cape
Town could be knocked to pieces and the coal stored here be burned
by a single hostile cruiser. A scheme has been prepared to raise a
few earthworks and place some guns in position, but nothing has
yet been done ; it has been proposed further to place a fort on
Robben Island, in the mouth of Table Bay, and to erect a series of
batteries on Lion s Head, which towers above the docks and

A A 2

35G

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1681.

TABLE BAY TO SIMON'S BAY.i

DATS.

March
8

Distance

UNDER

Steam.

Miles.
57

Wind.

Temperature.

Sea.

S. toS. by E. 7 -8 -2

Noon.

0 P.M.

Air-
Noou 6 p.M

53 I 72 ! 63

1 This chart shows the relative ^xisitioiis of the naval station at Simon^s Bay, and
of Cape Town in Table Bay, and of the mountainous peninsula that divides them.
Each degree measured vertically off the side of the chart is equal to sixty miles ; and
each of the smaller sections (mai^ked here in tens) is equal to one mile.

1881. STRATEGIC VALUE OF THE CAPE. 367

anchorage of the breakwater, and the plunging fire from guns in
such a position would be irresistible. If this plan were carried out,
it would be necessary to concentrate all efforts on the northern
side of the Table peninsula, and to build shops, factories, and naval
stores there. It is true that in some respects Table Bay with its
docks and breakwater would make a better naval station than
Simon's Bay, situated at the other end of the Cape peninsula ; for
the latter is a small bay whose shores rise so rapidly into high
downs that there is no room for a dry dock or even the necessary
expansion of buildings. The anchorage too is exposed there to the
prevailing south-easterly winds, which at some seasons of the year
render the bay little better than an open roadstead ; and at the same
time on very many days the roughness of the water prevents all
coaling. Under any conditions this operation has to be carried
on there by lighters ; whereas in the docks at Table Bay the largest
men-of-war could lie alongside the wharves to coal. Simon's Bay,
moreover, is commanded on all sides by hills, behind which are
various small bays in which hostile forces might readily effect a
landing. For the permanent defence of an arsenal in Simon's Bay
these hills must be crowned with works, which would have to be
adequately garrisoned. At present there is on the shores of the
bay only a small establishment containing engineers' shops and
" stores." There is, however, urgent need for the extension of this
accommodation, if the place is to be maintained. Adjoining the
naval establishment is a private slip capable of hauling up small
vessels, and at a pinch gunboats of 400 tons. But this is the only
attempt at a slip, and it belongs to a private firm. That is all there is
to be advanced on behalf of Simon's Bay ; except that it is six miles
from the railway, and secluded and kept entirely for those connected
with the navy. The first question to decide, then, is whether to
defend both Table Bay and Simon's Bay, or only one of them ; and, if
one, then which ? for if the Cape is to be retained, the defence of
some place here as a naval station in time of war would seem to
be a matter of concern. It is, however, as the accompanying chart
will show, quite futile to talk of holding this peninsula as a
Gibraltar, in case Great Britain gave up South Africa. Some
people have proposed to draw a line twelve miles in length across
from Table Bay to False Bay, and thus separate Table Mountain
from the rest of South Africa, so that the Cape Town peninsula,
and that only, should remain ours, while the whole of the rest of
the country (without its capital) would be left entirely to shape

358 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCEAXTE. 1881.

its own future and give us no more trouble. But the peninsula
alone would be an exceedingly awkward place to defend land-
wards as well as seawards. Neither, again, as others have proposed,
could Simon's Bay be disconnected from Cape Town and held by
itself, while the capital was left in the hands of the independent
colony, even if the Bay were an adequate position for a naval station,
which it is not, unless supplemented by the resources of Cape Town.
Sixty miles to the north of Cape Town, however, lies Saldanha
Bay, one of the finest natural harbours in the world, in an almost
unpeopled district. Its length from north to south is fifteen miles,
and the entrance is three miles broad ; at all seasons and in all
winds it affords a secure and excellent anchorage ; and the only
wonder is that, when the Dutch first came to the Cape, they did
not found the capital there, instead of in the very exposed position
under Table Mountain. It is possible that Great Britain might
hold that bay, if the Cape voted itself independent Saldanha Bay
is the one harbour within a distance of several thousand miles
where a naval arsenal could be made. It would be less easy to
attack and far cheaper to defend than either Table Bay or
Simon s Bay. But, nevertheless, at best the position would be in-
vidious and insecure, and, just as much as either of the other two
bays, would be constantly exposed to attack, if the territory which
now belongs to the colony were in independent or foreign hands.
The truth is that the Cape has lost and is losing much of its
strategic value since the Suez Canal was opened. Some people still
believe that it is dangerous to depend upon that route exclu-
sively for the means of transit to India and the Eastern seas, and
that it is indispensable for Great Britain, and essential to the
security of her commerce with all the Australian Colonies, India
and the Straits Settlements, to retain possession of the harbours at
the Cape as coaling stations and places for refitting and provisioning
ships. Yet every year the necessity is lessened. The Canadian
Pacific Railway already gives Great Britain one alternative route by
which to despatch her troops in case of need to the East ; and the
Panama Canal will in 1888 funiish another ; it is plain, therefore,
that, with these three alternative routes, if South Afiica were for
valid reasons (be they what they may) to pass into other than
British hands — (say those of the Dutch, or Germans) — ^it would not
really make such a vast difference to England as has sometimes been
supposed, more especially since both or either of these Teutonic
Powers should always be the allies or friends of England. An

1881. AT SIMON'S BAY. 359

active enemy in possession of Simon's Bay or Table Bay might
intercept some small portion of the ocean traffic between Europe
and the East, but not much ; not nearly so large a proportion of the
traffic as formerly when the English first took possession of the
Cape on the then sole trade route to the East. Other things
being equal, we had better keep it than part with it; but the
retention of these two bays, at present totally undefended, is not
any longer of sufficient importance to warp our judgments in con-
sidering the possibility of South African independence, much less
to justify the English, who'are a very small minority in the European
population of these lands, in wishing to *' assert their paramount
supremacy," or in squandering millions in endless complications
with the native tribes and clau chiefs of the interior.]

March dth. — At 10.20 A.M. shifted berth closer in, as it was
dark when we arrived last night. Admiral inspected Cleopatra.
As the south-easterly gale freshened in the evening some of our
officers, who had gone for a walk, could not get off, and the next
morning communication with the shore was also difficult.

During the next ten days we had the usual drilb and exercises,
with alternate calms and strong gales from the south-east. The
days were bright and cloudless and the nights were the same, with a
moon nearly at its full. The sound of the wind rushing past the
ship at anchor day after day and night after night is rather
monotonous ; but it is the tail of the south-east trade, and therefore
we have no right to complain. We expected that some of the
squadron at any rate would have been taken on to Natal for
service ; we could have landed at least 1,000 men on our fii-st
arrival, and, if ever they were wanted, they were wanted then ;
instead of which they have remained wearily waiting at Simon's
Bay, growling that they are brought here on a bootless errand from
South America. As for "demonstration," for us lying in this
secluded bay, twenty-one miles from Cape Town, well out of sight
of the Dutch, who have scarcely known of our existence, it is a
very hollow, make-believe affair. However, regularity and quiet,
every day school and work, with an occasional run ashore, has done
no one any harm. We are patiently awaiting orders as to what
is to be done next. We have been no use in any way here yet to
anybody but the beef-contractor, whatever people in England may
think.

One afternoon three senior and sedate members of the ward-room
went away in the dingy, fishing by the Roman Rock, and as it came

360

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE,

1881.

on squally tbey got adrift and were in an awkward position, and
a cutter had to be sent after them to tow them back. As she
came alongside they sat bolt up in the stern sheets looking as
dignified as they could, and made believe to have thoroughly
enjoyed themselves.

AT SIMON'S BAY.

Tkmperatubb.

Date.

Wind.

Sea.

Air.

Noon.

Gp.m.

Noon.

6 p.m.

March'

S. to S.S.W. 6-8-2

S. to S.S.S. 7-97

S. by E. toS.S.E. 7*9

S. by E. toS.S.E. 7-9-3

13S.

S. E 7 to calm

S.S.E. 3 -3 -6

S.S.E. 4-7 calm

N.W. 2-6 cam

S.E. 1-6 -4

S.E. 2-4

S.E, 3-5, N.E. 1

20S.

Variable 1

N.W. 4-5, S.E. 1

S.E. 1-7 -3

S.E. 1-4 calm

S.S.W. 2-3, S. and S.E. 6*4

S.E. 4-7-4, S.E. 3-4 calm

27S.

S.S.E. 4-7

S.E. 5-6, N.W. 3-4

N.W. 2-3, S.W. 21

Variable 1-3

N.W. 3-5

April

N.N.W. 8-4, variable

N.W. 3-4, S.W. and S.E. 3-4

3S.

S.E. 2-4

S.S.E 4-6

S.E. 5-7

S.S.E 6-7

S.S.E. 7-2

S.S.E. 8-7

S.S.E. 7-4

March 17 th. — In the dinner hour a photographer came on board
and photographed the ship's company. There was a cricket-match
between our bluejackets and those of the InconsiarU, which the
Bacchantes won by ten wickets. In the supper hour we had
some very successful fishing off the glacis. Nearly every day lately

1881. AT SIMON'S BAY. 361

we have been running Whitehead torpedoes. Some of us have
been away sailing this afternoon.

March l^th, — The Russian corvette Vestnik, which had arrived
two days ago, hoisted the Russian flag half-mast high at 8 A.M. and
topped her yards on end, on account of the assassination of the
Emperor of Russia, the news of which had arrived by telegram on
the 14th. By a curious coincidence it was here, August 15th, 1867,
that the Duke of Edinburgh in the GalaJtea received the news of the
murder of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. At that date, too, the
colony was " in indiflferent circumstances," — a cattle plague, a dis-
ease among the sheep, the grape disease, and excessive speculation
having more or less involved all classes in distress. In compliment
the squadron, with colours at half mast, joined in the funeral salute.
The Russian corvette fired a salute of thirty-one guns, beginning at
11 A.M., and each ship of the squadron in succession in order of
seniority fired twenty-one minute-guns, as also did the Flc/ra and
Tamar. Before the firing our bands played the Dead March in Saul
and at the conclusion the Russian hymn. Basset, our new midship-
man, joined. He started from England to the Pacific, intending to
join the Bacchante there, and had got as far as the West Indies when,
hearing that the squadron had been ordered to the Cape, he returned
again to England and started afresh.

March l^th, — Cricket-match at Wynberg, Bacchante v. Tmir-
maliney Cari/sfort, Cleopatra, the former winning by thirty-five
runs. The corvettes in the first innings scored 74, and in the
second 65 ; the Bacchante in the first innings scored 109. Eddy
went over to see Mr. Southey, and afterwards rode on the grey
horse which the Prince Imperial was trying to mount just before
his death, June Ist, 1879; he is a strong, powerful, and very tall
animal, and went very well. The uniform worn by the Prince
Imperial was found afterwards, in November of the same year, in a
kraal near Ulundi, the whole front of it having been pierced by
assegais. The Zulu who actually inflicted the death-wound was
afterwards killed at Ulundi. He also called on the Bishop of Cape
Town at Wynberg. The total bag obtained during our two months'
sojourn here was a single hare of the lop-eared species, which was
shot to-day by one of our indefatigable shipmates, who had been
out after him for many days on the hills above Simon's Bay.

March 2Srd. — In the afternoon squadron regatta, pulling races.
The Governor and suite came on board to see it, and lunched with
the captain. The CUopcUra's boats won the majority of the races ;

362 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

the Baccluzntes won three, and the flagship's two. Our launch won
the all-comers' race, and the officers' race was also won by a
Bacchantes crew which George coxed ; they were — bow, Evelyn Le
Marchant ; 2, A. M.Farquhar ; 3, F. B. Henderson ; 4, C. H. Moore ;
stroke, H. Roxby. The course was two and a-half miles; we
started from the Cleopatra, pulled round Roman Rock, then under
the Bacchantes stem, and finished at the flagship.

March 2^th, — The sailing regatta began at 10.30 A.M. For the
first six races the boats all started together, quite a swarm of them
along the hawser. Our cutter, sailed by Christian, won the cutters'
race easily ; and our pinnace was winning in the pinnaces' race, but
was fouled at the mark-boat. The coui^e was eight miles with nearly
three miles dead beat to windward. The boats started from Gleopaira,
rounded a mark-boat four cables astern of her, beat up to Noah's
Ark, passed it on the port hand, rounded the Roman Rock and
Castor Beacon, then back to mark-boat, and round again, finishing
off at flagship direct from Castor Rock. The flagship's launch won
the all-comers' race. The France, transport, came in firom England
with troops for the Transvaal, but very likely they will not be
landed now, for the war is over with the British defeat at Majuba.
Mr. Blake gave a tea-party to the men of the squadron at the
Temperance Rooms ashore, to which thirty-two of our ship's
company went and much enjoyed themselves.

March 26th. — The race for the Admiral's cup for all-comers, any
rig (boats handicapped), came off at 11 A.M. There were thirty-
two entries, and the result was that the InconMant's cutter, sailed
by the flag-captain, came in first ; the CarysforCs second ; and the
Bacchantes cutter, sailed by Mr. Farquhar, came in third. The
race was over the same eight-mile course as yesterday. At 5 P.M. all
the officers and coxswains of boats who had won any prizes went on
board the flagship, where Mrs. Wright, the wife of the commander
of the Flora, gave them away. I got a very nice little cup.

March 2%th. — The Squadron played a return match against the
Western Province Cricket Club, and won by thirty runs.
Squadron, first innings 130 ; Western Province, first innings 100 ;
second innings 49 and five wickets to fall. The Admiral made
a semaphore : " Boer peace signed ; Squadron to proceed to
Singapore after the arrival of the next mail from England,
expected on April 1st." Up to this period speculation had been
rife as to whether we should be ordered home, or beat back against
the westerlies round Cape Horn, and thus resume our original

1881. AT SIMON'S BAY. 363

cruise. Although this would have been a somewhat lengthy
passage, it was held that it would be a capital seasoning for the
officers and men of the Training Squadron ; and it would have
been a fine thing to have done that, which no one is recorded
to have done before — sailed straight across from the Cape of Good
Hope to the Horn, without first running up the ** trades " to the
Plate. If unsuccessful at first, the plan was suggested of steering
south to latitude GO"", and trying to pick up a south or east
wind south of the westerlies. It might have been rather cold, and
we should have seen some icebergs aud more fog, but it would
have hardened us up a bit. Another speculation was that we
might have sailed up with the south-east trade and crossed to
Monte Video (as Sir Home Popham did) and picked up the lost
thread of our cruise, and gone on from there to Valparaiso ; then,
omitting Vancouver altogether, made straight for the Sandwich
Islands, and kept the dates as originally arranged from Honolulu.
During the afternoon we went to play lawn tennis at Captain
Wright's and had some very good games.

March 27th, — Strong south-easter blowing, and the sea getting
np, but, as usual, with it a clear sky and bright sun. Admiral made
signal to " prepare for sea on Saturday," in six days' time. Had
Sunday services, as usual, on the main deck. In the afternoon
many officers came on board from the France, and had a look over
the ship.

March 2Sth, — Watched the sun rise this morning in a clear sky,
but full of colour over the Hottentot hills. At 6 a.m. the Tamar
went out to try her engines. She was to have taken Sir Hercules
Robinson to Natal. The same drill to-day as on many days in suc-
cession : crossed royal yards, loosed sails, hauled out to a bowline.
We went to school, the men to general quarters. My boat was
down, so I had to take the officers on shore and letters on board the
Flora and flagship. Then we manned and armed boats and got out
stream anchor and cable in the launch. After evening quarters I
read for two hours, then had tea.

March 29th. — General Roberts arrived to-day by mail eighteen
days from England — the usual mail to England takes twenty-two
days — to take command of the British force for restoring order in
the Transvaal; but he returns by the next mail (April Ist) to
England, as they have changed their minds since he left home on
the 11th, and there is to be no more war ; the peace was signed
March 21st, while he was at sea. Most of the troops brought out

364 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

at great expense are to return without landing, and this squadron,
brought half across the globe, is to be sent away also, for they have
no use for it here. The mail also brought all our letters which
had been down to the Falklands and home again from there to
England in the mean time. The Russian sloop Vednik sailed for
Singapore, saluting Admiral's flag on leaving. General semaphore
from Inconstant, '* Departure of squadron for Singapore postponed
for the present." So there has been another change of plans.

[It may not be amiss to insert here some account of the Transvaal
complications considered from a purely historical point of view,
and entirely without political bias, quoting only official papers.
In 1875 the Dutch settlers in that region were hard pressed
by the natives on all sides, by Sikukuni on the north-east, by
Ketchwayo on the south, and by the Betschuanas on the west.
Although in 1876 Khama, the ostensible over-lord of the Bets-
chuana clans, after having been converted to Christianity by the
London Missionary Society, desired to cede the protectorate of his
territories to the British, and had learnt to say " There ajre three
things that distress me very much : war, selling people, and rum '* ;
yet this pressure of the Kaffir race on the Dutch settlers appeared
(rightly or wrongly) to be a constant peril to the white race in
Natal and in South Africa generally. The Government of the
Transvaal seemed also at that time to be incapable of enforcing its
laws or collecting its taxes ; the salaries of its officials had been
unpaid for months, the treasury was empty and the St^te bankrupt;
the white inhabitants were split into factions. Burgers (a clergy-
man who had come out from Holland to the Cape Colony),
the President since 1873, admitted that "the independence of
the Transvaal could not be maintained unless the Volksraad would
consent so to change the constitution as to confer upon the
executive Government the necessary power to control the people."
He convened the Volksraad, Feb. 13, 1877, and brought forward his
proposed measures. The Volksraad would have none of them.
Burgers then proclaimed a new constitution on his own responsibility.
But this only added to the anarchy. On the 12th April, 1877, Sir
Theophilus Shepstone formally re-annexed the Transvaal to British
territory. The reason put forward for the revocation of the Sand
River Convention, by which the British had guaranteed its inde-
pendence, was that the external policy of the Republic as regards
the natives had occasioned a dread of a general war from the'
Zambesi to the Cape between the white and black races. At first

1881. ANNEXATION OF THE TRANSVAAL. 365

it appeared as if the only serious dissatisfaction at the annexation
was that felt by Ketchwayo and Sikukuni, who were thus baulked
of their fancied prey by seeing the Transvaal taken under the
protection of England. The majority of the Dutch themselves
apparently acquiesced in the step, thinking the Transvaal would
be either annexed to Cape Colony or have a legislative assembly
of its own. When Kruger started for England to protest, he
said frankly that *' if he failed in his mission, he should become as
faithful a subject under the new Government as he had been under
the old." Other leading Dutch accepted office under the British,
stating that " they considered the change inevitable, and that the
cancelling of it would be calamitous." The deputation assured
the British Minister in London that " they were determined to use
their best endeavours on their return to induce their fellow
countrymen to accept cheerfully the present state of things ; and
that they desired to serve Her Majesty faithfully in any capacity for
which they might be judged eligible." No Volksraad was, however,
convoked by the British, no constitution given to the Transvaal.
The only excuse for this is that the British were occupied mean-
while in the Zulu war with Ketchwayo and with Sikukuni, and in
subduing these external enemies of the Transvaal. In June 1878
Kruger and Joubert came as a second deputation to England, to
ask fur a retrocession of the territory, and threatened a general
trek to regions further in the interior if refused. They were
informed that as " the Transvaal had been relieved at a large cost
to the Imperial Government from the difficulties into which it had
fallen, the reasons which forbid a reversal of the steps thus taken
are tenfold greater than those which dictated the act itself to
. those who had most reluctantly undertaken it." With a free
self-government and local home-rule it was hoped the Transvaal
would come into a confederation of South African States which
the English Government were then trying to bring about. Colonel
Lanyon succeeded Sir Theophilus Shepstone, March, 1879. The
Dutch discontent increased, and Sir Bartle Frere went to Pretoria
on April 12. The Boers asked for the restoration of the Sand
River Convention, and stated that up to the present they had had
no share in their own local government. Sir Bartle replied that
the first was impossible, but that the second should be granted at
once. His Zulu policy was, however, disapproved of by the Home
Government while he was in.Pretoria,.and .the Boers hoped- his
Transvaal policy- would be also disavowed. But thay were^-soon

366 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

undeceived ; for Sir Garnet Wolseley was sent out from England
with full military and civil command in the Transvaal, Natal, and
Zululand, and in September 1879 came up to Pretoria. He twice
announced that "as long as the sun shone the Transvaal would
remain British territory '* ; and stated in his proclamation issued at
Pretoria (which in two years had become three times as populous
as it was before the annexation), in the name and on behalf of Her
Majesty, that " this Transvaal territory shall continue to be for ever
an integral portion of Her Majesty's dominions in South Africa " ;
and again "there is no Government, Whig or Tory, Liberal,
Conservative, or Radical, who would dare under any circumstances
to give back this country. To give back this country, what would
it mean ? To give it back to the danger of attack from hostile
tribes on its frontier and to national bankruptcy. No taxes being
paid, the same thing would recur again as existed before : anarchy
and civil war within and every possible misery, the strangulation
of trade, and the destruction of property. Under no circumstance
whatever can Great Britain give back this country; facts are
stubborn things, and it is an undoubted fact that the English will
remain here." Shortly afterwards a constitution for the country
was published in the Transvaal Government Gazette, and the Dutch
were again urged to secure practical independence by becoming
thus a self-ruling member of a South African Confederation.

Early in 1880 Joubert and Kruger went down to Cape Town.
The Cape Parliament rejected all schemes for confederation, and
an Address was sent home to England signed by several Cape
politicians for annulling the Transvaal annexation. In March Sir
Garnet Wolseley once more proclaimed before staiting for England
that the Queen's Sovereignty would never be withdrawn. Sir
George Colley succeeded him as High Commissioner. In May,
1880, four Ministers of the new English Government one after the
other, three in the Commons and one in the Lords, stated officially
that *'by the^ establishment of the Queen s supremacy they held them-
selves to have given a pledge to the large native population in the
Transvaal, which was twenty times more numerous than the Boers.
Deplorable as the state of things was in the Transvaal before 1877,
the English Government could not, if it would, re-create in Boer hands
even as strong a Government as that over which President Burgers
presided. What the Boers disliked was not so much a foi^igu Govern-
ment as a Government which attempted to exercise any authority
at all or to levy apy taxes. It was c^uite impossible to hand back

1881. TRANSVAAL WAK. 367

the country to the Boers ; to do so would be to incite commotion
and would not be just in itself. It must not be forgotten that the
Transvaal was a country nearly as large as France, and it was a
strong thing to assert that the will of even a considerable majority
of the 34,000 Boers — for that was their number all told, men,
women and children — should be final as to the future of so vast a
territory. The annexation had been accepted and ratified by two
Cabinets which were so diverse that they might be said to
represent almost every element which exists in British political
life; and whatever they might think of the original act of
annexation they could not safely or wisely abandon the territory.
We had at the cost of much blood and treasure restored peace, and
the eflfect of our now reversing our policy would be to leave the
province in a state of anarchy. Their judgment was that under no
circumstances could we relinquish the Transvaal. Nothing could
be more unfortunate than uncertainty in respect of such a matter."
This official detennination was telegraphed to the Cape, May 20th,
1880, and made known to Kruger and Joubert, with the hope
again expressed that " liberty would be most easily and promptly
conceded to the Transvaal as a member of a South African
Confederation." Many of the Dutch in the Transvaal prepared
to trek, and sold their farms to Englishmen, who had pressed
into their territory. In December some Boers declined to pay
taxes, and on the 13th the South African Republic was proclaimed,
a resolution to fight for independence was carried, and a Triumvirate,
Kruger, Joubert and Pretorius, was appointed. Of the seven
isolated bands of English loyalists that were then invested by the
Dutch, six held out to the end of the war, from December, 1880, to
March 28th, 1881 : (1) At Pretoria five companies of infantry
(267 men) with 200 mounted volunteers and 450 other soldiers
(1,000 troops in all) and about 4,000 citizens, mostly English, were
besieged by the Dutch. On December 20th two companies and the
head-quarters of the 94th Regiment coming from Lydenberg to
Pretoria were cut to pieces at Bronker s Spruit by 500 Dutch. Of
the 240 men composing the detachment 57 were killed, and 100
wounded. (2) At Potchefstroom were 21 3 loyalists, who surrendered
to famine on 19th March, and on the 23rd left with honours of war.
The truce for eight days made at Laing's Nek on the 6th March
was heard of on the 9th March, but no provisions arrived. The
best account of the defence is given by Colonel Winsloe in
MacmUlan's Magazine, April, 1883. (3) At Standerton were three

363 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

companies, with some loyal colonists, who were invested from 29th
December to 28th March. An account of the defence was published
by Major Montague ia Blackwood for May, 1883. (4) At Lydenberg
was a fort ; (5) at Rustenberg were 60 volunteers in a fort ; (6) at
Marabastad a fort with 60 men, 30 white volunteers and 50 natives,
and (7) at Wakkerstroom another. These all held out to the end,
expectiug to be relieved by the British forces that were known to
be advancing from Natal. At this time there was not a single
important native chief from the Vaal to the Limpopo who did not
offer to help the English. Montsioa gathered a force of 3,000
men to go to the relief of Potchefstroom ; Mankoroane sheltered
and protected the English refugees ; Mapoch actually took the field
and a British oflScial had to be sent to stop him. (All three have
since lost their cattle, land, and people.) In two days if allowed
every native would have been in arms, and by sheer weight of
numbers would have overpowered the Boers. Tribes which were
never agreed before were now united in loyalty to England ; but
they were ordered to be quiet; for it would have been as
unnatural a thing to have employed them against the Dutch as
it was to employ the Red Indians in North America against the
American colonists when they were struggling to be free.
However ready the white race may have been in South Africa for
their own advantage to play off the divisions of one tribe against
another, or the jealousies and claims of one clan chief against those
of his rival, yet it would have been repugnant to all right feeling
for whites to have employed blacks against whites.

On January 21st, 1881, the English Government '* repudiate the
annexation of the Transvaal, but will not abandon it," and a
motion in the House of Commons " condemning the annexation of
the Transvaal and deprecating the measures taken by the Govern-
ment to enforce British supremacy over the people of that country,"
was defeated by a two-thirds majority. On January 27th, the
Dutch with 4000 picked men invaded the British colony of Natal
and occupied Laing's Nek. On the 26th, Sir George Colley
with 1000 British troops arrived at Mount Prospect, four miles
below the Nek, which he attacked on the 28th, but was repulsed.
On the 7th of February he* fought the battle of Ingogo, when the
British, suffered a second defeat, and retreated leaving their
wounded and dead on the field. On the 16th of February a Royal
Coraniission was promised by telegraph through Sir John Brand,
Prfifiid.ejxt of th^ Orange Free State,, by the English Government^

1881. MAJUBA. 3G9

** anxious to avoid eflfusion of blood," if the Boers will cease from
anned opposition : no reply to this was received at Laing s Nek
till March 1st. Sir Evelyn Wood (with reinforcements 2,000
strong, two days* march in the rear) joined Sir George CoUey, but
was sent back by him to Maritzburg. On the night of the 26th
February, three companies of the 58th Regiment, one of the 60th
Rifles, three of the 92nd, and sixty-four men of the Naval Brigade
from H.M.S. Boadicca, 600 men in all with Kaffirs, were moved up
to the summit of Majuba, an isolated hill, which stands out from
the huge wall of the Drakenberg like a tower, on the left or north
side of Laing's Nek and rising 2,000 feet above it. The plateau at
the top is 400 yards long by 300 broad, at the height of 6,000
feet above the sea, but only 3,000 feet, or about the height of
Helvellyn, above the plain, which itself on the eastern or Natal
side of the Drakenberg is about 3,000 feet above the sea. Two-
thirds of Majuba Hill are steep slopes with low bush and rocks,
the last third is a precipice to the top, up which the British
climbed on their hands and knees. At <lawn they were seen
by the Boers from below, who put oxen to their waggons and
prepared to retreat, expecting a flank attack to be made on the
Nek by the rest of the English, while those on Majuba shelled
them. Finding no attack was made, and seeing that the British
on the top of Majuba had neither rockets nor mountain guns ,
and that they were out of rifle range, and therefore impotent to
attack the laager, the Dutch determined to storm. They rushed
at Majuba, while others in their rear fired over their heads as they
advanced, and picked off the English as they showed themselves
on the top of the hill. *'A funk became established" among
our men. The order to fix bayonets and charge down upon the
advancing Boers was not executed. Weary and panic-stricken the
English turned and fled. Sir George Colley at the first rush was
shot through the head. (Curiously the Boer who shot him was
the very same day just two years afterwards himself shot in a
similar way by Mapock's Kaffirs). With a loud cry of fi-ight and
despair the English flung themselves over the edge of Majuba ; the
Boers poured on, and fired on them below, as they ran like game.
The Boers had one man killed and five wounded ; the English
ninety-two killed, 134 wounded, and fifty-nine prisoners. " There
have been cases when a defeat, invited by the mistakes of a British
general, has been saved by the courage of his men. But it was
not so at Majuba. The men made no eflfort to turn the fortunes of
VOL. I. B B

370 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

the day. They commenced to run before the Boers reached the
top of the hill. The reserves bolted almost before they had fired
a shot. As regards the Boers, it is impossible not to admire their
courage. They said afterwards that when they commenced the
attack on the mountain, they never expected to storm it. It was
a forlorn hope which Smid led up the slopes of Majuba, for our men
had all the advantage of position. Let the Dutch have their due.
It was a brave and valiant act to ascend the steep slopes of the
Majuba Hill in the face of an enemy whose numbers were un-
known to them, and who were armed with bayonets — weapons
they did not possess. However opinions may differ about the
merits of the war, no one can deny that on that day the Boers
fought well and bravely." On the 5th March Sir Evelyn Wood, in
command of the forces, telegraphed home that after fourteen days
{i.e. on the 19th) he hoped to fight a successful action, and then to
offer an amnesty to the Boers, when they had retired from British
territory. Next day, on the 6th March, he signed an armistice
with Joubert, in order that provisions might be sent to the be-
leagured English garrisons in the Transvaal. On the 2 1st March,
under the shadow of Majuba, and on English ground, a preliminary
peace was signed. The terms were, the restoration of the B.epublic ;
the British to have a veto on all legislation affecting the natives
(of whom there were 800,000 in the Transvaal), and a Resident at
Pretoria. On August 3rd, at Pretoria, " the Convention " was
signed by Sir Hercules Robinson, Sir Evelyn Wood, and Sir
Henry de Villiers (the chief justice of the Cape Colony), Her
Majesty's commissioners for this purpose, and ratified by the
Volksraad (after many objections) on 25th October.]

March 30^A. — The Bacchante and Carysfort played an eleven of
the garrison at Wynberg, and beat them by forty-nine runs.
Captain Fitzgerald gave a cup to be sailed for by cutters and
pinnaces with ordinary crews and midshipmen. There were about
twelve entries ; A. H. Christian sailed the Baxxhantes first life-cutter
and beat all the others easily ; one of the Carysforfs cutters came
in second, and another of her cutters came in third.

March Zlst — It is raining, and as the wind is from the north-west
the hills over Simon's Town are all covered with dark clouds. In
the afternoon there was a pulling race between our launch and the
Inconstant* s cutter, both double-banked ; Ba/:chante*8 won by twenty-
three seconds. There was a ball to-night given by some of the
residents in Cape Town to the Admiral and officers of the squadron.

1881. AT SIMON^S BAY. 371

The Admiral did not go, neither did we, as that morning we had
received by telegram intelligence of the death of the Queen
Dowager of Denmark. Prince Louis of Battenberg did not go
either on account of the death of the Emperor of Russia. Besides
the tension which there is just now between the British and the
Dutch in the Cape Colony, many families are also in mourning
through the loss of husbands and brothers in the Basuto war
and the widows of other English officers who have recently fallen
in the Transvaal are now residing here ; so this little community
is not in the humour for balls or gaieties. Every one is over-
whelmed with trouble ; and as the Basuto war is being carried on
by the volunteers and militia of the Cape Colony single-handed,
many of the chief promoters of such entertainments are away.
This ball was given in the Exchange Buildings, which were
very prettily decorated, and on one side a broad canvas alcove was
erected in which many flowers and shrubs were placed. There was
plenty of room' for dancing, as the rooms were cool and not crowded.
A special train ran up from Wynberg to Cape Town and back again
after the ball was over, for the convenience of the officers of the
squadron.

The next day we lunched at Rondebosch, with Mr. Servaas Van der
Byl, who has a very pretty house there, filled with old Dutch china;
some of it is very curious, having been taken out of the wreck of
an East Indiaman that went ashore here. Some of this china now
forms an encrusted mass, composed of many cups and saucers all
adhering together. He has also several pieces of old Lowestoft
china, — of which the Dutch used to get large quantities, — and a large
glass drinking-horn. We saw also there some very curious old books
of the early Dutch settlers about the Hottentots. On the hill behind
the house, and in the wood, we saw the old Dutch burial-ground, as
Rondebosch was one of the earliest settlements they made in the
land. The tombs are oblong, constructed of brick and plaster,
and arched over their whole length ; and at either end there stands
up a tablet of slate, the top of which has, however, by this time, in
most instances, been broken oflF, so that the names of the old
soldiers of the Dutch company that now lie beneath are no longer
decipherable, being buried among the brown grass and dry moss.
In the field by the house we saw an Arab stallion, by name Prince,
that had been brought home in the Serapis from India by the
Prince of Wales and afterwards sold to a purchaser out here.

April ^th. — A south-easter blowing all day, as it has been for

B B 2

372 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

the whole of the last week. H.M.S. Orontes (Captain R. G. Kinahao)
having landed the 99th Regiment, brought straight from Bermuda
to Cape Town, came round here. That night, at 11.30 P.M., the signal
was flashed from the flagship, which we were very glad to read,
as we spelt it out letter by letter on the poop : " Squadron will sail
— on Saturday — for M-e-1-b-o-u-r-n-e." Hurrah ! the click-click
of the flashing lanterns that have handed on to us through the
darkness that message from England has sent new life into
our veins.

• The next day the Admiral gave an afternoon party on board the
Inconstant", and on the 8th the Squadron officers' football team
played a match against the Western Province football club,
and won.

On Friday we had hoped to have gone to Constantia, Wynberg,
and Cape Town, to say farewell to the Governor and his family,
but as the gale from the south-east was still blowing strong, it
prevented all landing in the morning, so we were obliged to send
messages instead. It lulled towards evening, so the captain asked
Prince Louis of Battenberg and us both to dine with him, as it
was the King of Denmark's birthday.

[South Africa is a quarter of the world where England has not
been happy. The very name, Spes Bona, seems to contain more
sarcasm than truth, and to be anything rather than auspidum
mcHoris a^vi. By a curious irony the result of Sir Home Popham's
expedition, in 1806, was just the reverse of that for which we
should have hoped. We retained the Cape Colony, which then
seemed important strategically to Great Britain, but which has
been a constant burden on our hands without commensurate profit
either to ourselves or to its inhabitants, and lost South America,
the development of which would have been easy and the retention
of which by us would probably have been a blessing to all concerned.
The secret of our breakdown is contained in the fact that South
Africa is neither a colony nor a foreign dependency. It cannot
develop like Australia, nor can it be governed like India. The
mere fact of there being a foreign race of European extraction
established on the soil, would have been no bar to its peaceful
development as a colony under the British Crown, as has been
shown in other instances, were it not for the presence of a large,
ever-increasing and turbulent native element. As a colony South
Africa does not advance, because there is no immigration ; and
there is no immigration partly because of the nature of the

1881.

SOUTH AFRICA.

373

country, and partly because of the other foreign European race
who have already occupied it. The problem of governing South
Africa to the advantage and satisfaction of the Dutch, the British,
and the Natives, is perhaps more diflScult of solution than any
other which British statesmen have had to face. Mr. Gladstone
once said, when Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, that
after having carefully looked into South African difficulties, he had
arrived at the conclusion that the case presented a problem of which
he, for one, could not see the solution ; and the difficulty has arisen
from causes which do not seem to be even yet rightly apprehended
by the English people.

Before attempting to unravel the entangled skein of South
African affairs, it is first necessary to grasp the fact that there are
three separate and wholly different constituent strands to be
disengaged ; and, if possible, woven afterwards in one firm and solid

structure. First (a) there are the two British colonies, each, how-
ever, differently constituted, of Cape Colony and Natal ; the larger
of these has responsible government, and the smaller is a Crown
colony ; but all the Queen's white subjects in South Africa are not
equal in number to the population of Dublin and Perth, and of
these the vast majority are Dutch and German. Secondly (b),
there are two independent Dutch Republics, the Orange River
Free State and the Transvaal — not British at all, but each with a
strong national feeling of their own. Thirdly (c), besides the two
millions of the coloured races who live within the two British
and two Dutch settled districts, and increase and multiply with
amazing rapidity — (unlike the coloured races in Australia, New
Zealand, and North America, where they die away) — there is,
altogether outside the limits of these four European colonies, a

374 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

Congeries of native tribes and states, some dependent, others semi-
dependent, others again independent, the population of which is
estimated at from five to seven millions, but whose relation to the
British Crown, as represented by the High Commissioner, and to
the two British Colonies and the two Dutch States, has been and is
being constantly changed and modified.

(A.) The two British Colonics,

(I.) Cape Colony. — The Cape of Good Hope was rounded six
hundred years before our era, by the Phoenicians who were
sailing to Malabar and Arabia to win their trade for Carthage.
Vasco da Gama in 1497 doubled what up to that time had
been named Cabo Tormentoso, or Cape of Storms, but no
European nation took possession before the English, who did so in
1620. In 1619 the English and Dutch Governments consulted
together as to how the two nations might combine in the common
work. The English, however, did not establish any settlement
here, and it was the Dutch East India Company, who, in 1652, sent
out the first colony of 100 persons, who landed on the present site
of Cape Town. The place was held as a convenient house of call
on the road to the Dutch possessions in the East Indies. But
the rule of the Dutch East India Company, which was not that of
Holland, but of a close trading corporation, was naturally distasteful
to the burghers, or Dutch farmers, who objected to being niled by a
delegate sent out by Amsterdam merchants, whose one idea was to
wring as much from them as possible. So, inspired by the spirit of
national independence and liberty, they trekked away, ever further
and further from the sea-board into the interior. In 1788 they
had extended themselves as far eastwards as the great Fish River,
500 miles from Cape Town. In 1795, when the Netherlands were
over-run by the French, the English secured the Cape for the Prince
of Orange ; and at the Peace of Amiens in 1803 it was restored to
the Batavian Republic. In 1806 it was again secured by the British ;
and at the final treaty, in 1815, made over to them in perpetuity.
Its importance to the Netherlands had declined in proportion to
the decline of their East Indian Colonial Empire, and had increased
to England as her Indian Empire increased. Cape Colony in
1815 extended only about one-third of the dist.ance to the Orange
River, which is now its northern boundary, — 400 miles from
Cape Town.

Since 1875 the area of Cape Colony is 199,950 square miles.

1881. CAPE COLONY— POPULATION. 376

about equal to that of France, and more than half as large again
as that of the whole of Great Britain and Ireland, the area of the
United Kingdom being 121,607 square miles. The total population,
white and native, scattered over this vast but mostly dry and sterile
area, is under one million, or about that of the two cities of
Liverpool and Manchester combined, or that of Philadelphia. Of
this population of Cape Colony about one-third only arc whites
(Dutch, Germans, and English), that is less than the inhabitants of
Dublin ; and yet, though they are so few, they are more than twice
as many as all the other whites in South Africa, in Natal, in the
Orange Free State and in the Transvaal put together. The other
two-thirds of the people of Cape Colony are coloured, and consist
of 12,000 Malays, nearly 100,000 Hottentots, about the same
number of Fingoes, another 100,000 mixed (Griquas and other
half-breeds), and nearly 300,000 Kaffirs and Betschuanas. Not-
withstanding its size, from its unsuitableness for great manu-
facturing industries, and in some regions even for agriculture, it
seems probable that Cape Colony will never be much more densely
inhabited. In Cape Colony there are two, or at the most three
persons per square mile, in England there are more than 300.

In the whole of South Africa (including the two independent
Republics) colonists of Dutch descent are put down at 330,000,
and those of German, English or any other European descent at
162,000. In the Cape Colony (including Griqualand West) the
number is 220,000 Dutch to 120,000 other Europeans, or in
the proportion of rather less than two to one. It is, however,
to their qualities rather than their numbers that the Dutch owe
their political preponderance. In the first place they are the chief
landholders, and whoever holds the land holds the balance of
political power ; and they have all the virtues as well as the defects
of a community of land-holding yeomen. They recognise no
superior, but they are willing to accept every one as an equal,
provided he is white. The much abused Dutch Boer (or bauer, or
yeoman) in the Cape Colony is exactly like an old fashioned
English farmer — a sober, temperate. God-fearing man ; the double
isolation arising out of the nature of his pursuits, and the want
of a common language with the English whites, strengthens his
prejudices and makes him suspicious of English ideas, which he
associates with the smart tricks which he or his friends have on
some occasions experienced from the pushing and commercial
English. The best and richest land in Cape Colony is occupied by

376 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

these old yeomen ; they own tlie best vineyards and the best sheep-
farms, and the choicest spots belong to them. They seldom sell,
and most scrupulously keep the land in their own families. Few
Englishmen who have ever settled at the Cape as farmers, and
been exposed to the same vicissitudes and temptations as their
Dutch neighbours, have not imbibed a liking and respect for that
rugged, obstinate race, even if they do not become, in their way of
looking at colonial questions, even more Dutch than the Dutch
themselves. An Englishman, who certainly in his writings is not
over-prejudiced in their favour, says, "1 have the pleasure of
numbering many intelligent and educated Boers among my ac-
quaintance, and I desire to put it on record that a good Boer is
quite equal to a good Englishman. Nay, in one respect he is better,
for he adds to the virtues of an Englishman an unbounded and
generous hospitaUty, and a feeling of kinship and clannishness,
which is wanting in his more cosmopolitan friend." Cape Colony
is, therefore, just as Dutch in sentiment as either of the two Dutch
Republics ; the old Roman Dutch law is still the code of the colony
and the language over the greater part of it is Dutch. The Dutch
have occupied it for over 200 years, they subdued the Hottentots,
they destroyed the wild beasts, they built farm-houses and towns,
they planted trees and vineyards. Forests of oak and pine
introduced from Holland still speak for their industry. English-
men go to South Africa to make money and come back with it ;
to the Dutch settlers it is still a home — a home they love with all
the sturdy tenacity of their race.

The revenue of Cape Colony is derived largely from customs,
which have produced on an average lately about one million
sterling a year. Nearly everything pays 15 per cent, ad valorem ;
iron goods 10 per cent, ad valorem. There is an export duty of
100/. on every ostrich exported, and 51, on every ostrich egg that
leaves the colony. The total revenue, in 1883, was 3,306,537/. ; the
expenditure was 3,686,288/. ; in 1884 the revenue was 2,941,054/.,
and the expenditure 3,450,000/. (The deficit of 550,000/., existing
in June, 1884, has been reduced to 28,000/. by June, 1885 ; the
temporary loan of 1,000,000 sterling, taken from the standard bank
of South Africa, in 1883, has been reduced, in 1885, to 400,000/.)
For 1885 the estimated revenue is 3,530,000/., and the expenditure
is 3,472,000/. The total debt of Cape Colony is nearly 21,000,000/.,
and involves an annual charge of 1,142,626/. for interest and
sinking fund. (Of this debt over 700,000/. was floate<l at 6 per

1881. CAPE COLONY— REVENUE. 377

cent., 5,000,000/. odd at 5 per cent., 10,000,000/. at 4^ per cent., and
5,000,000/. at 4 per cent. In 1885 a special Act was passed in the
British Parliament to empower the Home Government to lend to the
Colony, at 3 per cent, interest, 400,000/. to complete the eighty miles
of railway from the Orange River to Kimberley, in Griqualand West.)
A very large proportion of the debt of Cape Colony has been incurred
for profitable expenditure on public works ; on railways (of which,
although up to 1873 there were only 63 miles open in Cape Colony,
there are now 1 ,744 miles in all open for traffic in South Africa,
about as many as in the one colony of Victoria in AustraUa) a sum
of 14,000,000/. has been expended ; on harbours, another 1,500,000/. ;
on telegraphs, bridges, and other public works, another 1,000,000/. ;
or a total of 16,500,000/. laid out within the last ten years on
undertakings which cannot fail before long to be productive of
important results. The Basuto and other native wars have cost
the colony over 6,000,000/. within recent years. Three items in
the annual expenditure of Cape Colony worthy of attention, are
200,000/. for the colonial army ; another 100,000/. for border police,
(an armed force, chiefly used in suppressing stock thefts) ; and
40,000/. for the government of native territories outside, but
annexed to the Cape Colony, such as Transkei, &c. These three
items constitute together 340,000/. or one -sixth of the total revenue,
if we exclude the amount derived from railways. The two great
sources of revenue are customs and railways, which each con-
tribute nearly 1,000,000/. out of the total 3,000,000/. The Cape
derives a very small amount of revenue from sale of Crown lands in
comparison with the great Australian colonies. The total value of
assessed property in the colony is only 34,000,000/.

The total value of tlie trade of Cape Colony (the returns of
which include not only all that is consumed in the colony itself
but also all that goes inward to or comes outward from, the
Orange River Free State and the interior beyond) for the last
five years is as follows : —

F-X PORTS.

Year. I Imports. DianiondH. Various. Total.

1879. I £7,080,229 | £2,600,000 +£3,664,735 =£6,164,736

1880
1881.
1882.
1883.

1884.

7,648,863
9,227,171
9,372,019
6,470,891
5,249,000

2,600,000 + 4,268,700 = 6,768,700

2,500,000 + 4,140,042 = 6,640,042

2.500,000 + 4,331,626 = 6,831,626

2,742,000 + 6,970,300 = 9,712,300
6,743,270

378 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

The total trade value of exports aud imports combined increased
from 1879 till 1882, but in 1883 it met with a sudden and sharp
decline, or a fall of nearly 20 per cent. Of the imports five-sixths
are directly from, and of the exports three-fourths are directly to,
Great Britain. A large proportion of the total exports to Great
Britain is wool, of which forty-five million lbs. (under 3,000,000Z.
in value) were exported in 1883. Next come ostrich feathers, of
which nearly one million pounds' worth were taken by Great
Britain in 1883 : that is to say, taking diamonds and ostrich
feathers together, one-third of the produce exported from Cape
Colony goes to the adornment of ladies. Of the imports, it is the
old story ; nearly all are cotton goods and haberdashery, and iron,
wrought and unwrought ; nearly a million sterling's worth of this
last was imported by the Government last year for railways, &c.
In 1880 Cape Colony bought eight times as much from Great
Britain as from aU other foreign countries put together.

It is, however, by looking back to the time preceding the dis-
covery of the diamond fields that we are best able to measure the
advance made in South African trade. In 1869 the value of
imports was 1,968,191/. and of exports 2,267,255/. It would,
therefore, seem that since the diamonds were discovered the trade
has trebled itself. Fourteen years ago the exports from South
Africa consisted almost entirely of wool and skins, while at
present the largest part of the exports are such as have been
entirely developed since 1870 — diamonds, ostrich feathers and
mohair: the total of these three exported in 1869 was 108,000/.,
in 1879, 3,284,000/., and in 1883, 3,944,000/. In a great measure
ostrich-farming at the Cape has taken the place of sheep-farming,
but the industry seems a far more precarious one, as the market
depends in a great measure on the Highland regiments keeping
their bonnets, and on fashion, which may change any day, whereas,
as long as there is cold weather on the globe, there will be a
demand for wool. But the fact is sheep-farming here will not
pay; it is the old question of native labour. KaflSrs will not
work, coolie labour is too expensive to import, and English labour
cannot be had. Cape Colony, too, is not over well adapted for sheep
farming as carried on by men of small means, who are unable or
unwilling to devote that scientific care and attention to the im-
provement of the breed and to the maintenance of the stock
which the wealthy flock-masters in South America and Australia
have done, and are doing. The total annual value of wool exported

1881. CAPE COLONY— CONSTITUTION. 379

remains as it was ten years back, between two and three millions
per annum ; or about one-fifth of that sent from one colony alone
in Australia (New South Wales). African wool is decreasing in
value yearly ; grease, scab, and dirt do their work, and the wools of
Australia are beating South Africa out of the market.

The sheep farms of the colony are often of very great extent,
comprising from three to fifteen thousand acres, and upwards;
the graziers are generally freeholders of these farms. There are
about six thousand such proprietors, and between them they
possess nearly twenty-four million acres ; another ten thousand
holdings, comprising sixty million acres, are held on quit rent. A
considerable number are stated to be heavily mortgaged. The
r^istration system which prevails at the Cape is one of the most
perfect in the world. Land is as saleable as corn. When a man
wants to buy a plot of land he simply goes to the registration
office, where he finds the name of the owner and of the mort-
gagees who have a lien on the land. He sees at a glance the
exact position of the property, and in half an hour the whole
ceremony of transfer is completed, and at a trifling expense the
new title is registered, and the land passes into. his hands once for
all. Contrast this system with that which prevails in England,
the endless delays, the vast legal expenditure, the obstacles and
formalities of every kind.

The present constitution of the Cape Colony dates only from
1872. There are two Houses ; the Upper is called the Legislative
Council, and consists of twenty-two members elected for seven
years, three from each of the seven provinces into which the
colony is divided ; of these there are three western (W., N.W.,
and S.W.), three eastern (E., N.E., and S.E.), and one midland.
The other member comes from Griqualand West. They are elected
by the same constituents as the Lower, or House of Assembly.
This consists of seventy-four members who are elected for five
years. The Cape Parliament meets in April and sits for three
months, as a rule. Every male person of the age of twenty-one
years, occupying for twelve months any building, which with the
land on which it stands may be of the value of 50/., or receiving
a salaiy of 25L per annum, with board and lodging, possesses
the franchise ; that is, broadly, the real qualification consists
in fixed residence in the colony for a twelvemonth. In 1883
there were 68,074 such electors, not one out of ten of the
inhabitants of the colony ; although if proper statistics could be

380 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

procured we might find that the legislative power of Cape ColoDy
had been handed over to the coloured people, if they only knew it
and could get on the register. Each voter has as many votes
as there are candidates, and may plump or divide them as he
pleases ; just as in elections for the London School Board or
as in the State elections in Illinois. Cape Colony is the only
part of South Africa where the franchise, both municipal and
political, is given to men of every creed and colour if they have the
property qualification. There are five ministers, the colonial
secretary, attorney-general, treasurer, commissioner of Crown lands
and public works, and one for native affairs.

Education is not compulsory, and is at an exceedingly low ebb.
Of the European or white population alone, in 1875, 34 per cent,
of the males, and 33 per cent, of the females, could neither read
nor write, and yet 90,000/. are voted for education by the Cape
Parliament annually.

Theoretically the black and white races are treated on an
equal basis, the generic difference between them being set aside ;
regulations, theoretically admirable, have been sanctioned by the
legislature for the encouragement of school education amongst all
classes. Each agricultural or pastoral district is entitled to its
public boarding school ; each small cluster of farms to its
elementary day school ; each village to a school of higher grade ;
each chief town, of which there are six, has its first-class institution,
which by its various departments links primary instruction with
the liberal training of the scientific or literary student, who is a
candidate for Cape Town University honours. The poorest child
without distinction of creed or colour has ready access to the
District mission school subsidised by the State ; there is a complete
educational ladder, with the Kraal schools at the bottom and the
University at the top. There are in all sixty-three first-class
schools preparing pupils who are working for matriculation, 116
second-class schools, and on the lowest rung of all seventy-three
third-class schools, with a large number of missions and schools
for aborigines.

Out of the 960 schools and institutions in the colony nearly one
half are native schools; no scholar is compelled to attend for
religious instruction. This system has been working for twenty-
five years, and yet an educated Kaffir is exceedingly rare. Hardly
any of them get beyond the first-class school : the rest is practically
beyond their reach; too highly trained Kaffirs fall victims to

1881. CAPE COLON Vr— EDUCATION AND EMIGRATION. 381

consumption and die an early death. A Fingo has with patience
and perseverance, after seven years* labour, just succeeded in
matriculating at the Cape University ; for this he had to pass in
arithmetic, Euclid, algebra, chemistry, English literature, Latin
and Greek. According to the census 172,866 native children
should be at school. There were last year only 32,278 on the
roll; and of these 24,278 were returned as below the first
standard (i.e. could not write figures and monosyllables on
the slate, could not do simple addition, did not know the
multiplication table, and could not read monosyllables.) There-
fore it is evident, with all this elaborate machinery 90 per cent,
are engaged on learning the alphabet. Nine select children out
of the whole native children in the colony were said to be
able to pass Standard IV. Considering then that 420 out of
the 960 schools in the colony are for natives, the results are
not particularly encouraging. This is so probably because a
cardinal fact is ignored, the generic diflference between the Kaffir
and the European. There is no parallel in any part of the world
to the boldness with which the founders of this symmetrical
scheme tried to include the horde of semi-civilised and wholly
uncivilised natives in the same meshes as suffice for their European
brethren ; but the result is that the understanding, the conscience,
the whole soul of the native has scarcely been touched. Most of
the native teachers are very illiterate and incompetent, and unless
the eyes of the missionary or the head-man are upon them, they
neglect their work, and a very large part of the 90,000Z. grant is
at present, as far as the natives are concerned, spent to no purpose.
The B^ffir criticism of some of these teachers is instructive : " Educa-
tion makes a man not to love his friends, and makes him a rascal ; "
i,e, he tries to be sharp upon them, and gives himself airs of conceit.
As a field for Emigration South Africa is not promising. English
emigrants may not come under 71. fee ; they are neither welcomed
nor wanted. For such as form the backbone and staple supply of
our own British colonies, working men, whose sole capital consists
in their power of labour and knowledge of handicrafts. South Africa
is not the place. All the ground is occupied by the coloured
races, Malay, Kaffir, and Coolie, who can work for less and live
on less than an English labourer, and so can drive him to the wall.
And the more the natives are educated the more will they com-
pete with the European labourer, and with the rougher kinds of
handicraftsmen. Many English mechanics are constantly leaving

382 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

Durban, Port Elizabeth, and Cape Town for Adelaide and Sydney.
These men, some of them with families, have lived here for years,
and 'had, up to a recent date, been doing well; and now they are
taking their savings to a happier country, and wisely, for the
mere labourer in South Africa sinks to the level of the native
who is his competitor.

Neither are the commercial nor professional classes in demand,
for South Africa is overstocked with people who want to work
with their brains and not with their hands. The hard-working
Germans, of whom there are upwards of 15,000 in the colony, with
a national press of their own, are the only men who succeed.
They percolate into South Africa as they do everywhere else, but
it is a question whether they could not find a more promising
field for themselves elsewhere. A German peasant is one of the
most admirable colonists in the world: he gives no trouble. If
you put him down on a bit of barren land, with no capital but his
two hands, in a few years he turns it into a garden. Shiploads
of them have done this at the Cape, and have become, on the
most unpromising spots, thriving and successful peasant farmers.
In 1858 Sir George Grey settled the whole of British Kaffraria
with some 3,000 families of German immigrants at the cost of Her
Majesty's Government. They were the German legion who had
fought in the Crimea on our side against the Russians. These
settlers were sent out at the public charge, with rations supplied
to them for a year, and the lands they and their descendants now
occupy were sold to them. No more prosperous colonists than
these German settlers exist in the whole of South Africa, and the
districts they inhabit have been signally exempt from the troubles
which seem to be inherent to other portions of the colony.

Under the government of Capo Colony are the two outlying
provinces, (a) Griqualand West, and (b) the Transkei.

(a) Griqualand West is the interior country to the north of the
Orange River (the boundary of Cape Colony proper) and to the west
of the Orange River Free State. Griqua means bastard, or half
breed between an European and a native, and by such as these it was
originally inhabited. Most of them speak a corrupt Dutch, mingled
with the most discordant foreign elements. It was annexed to Cape
Town as a lieutenant-governorship in 1871, and in closer bonds in
1880. But many of the white inhabitants now desire autonomy
as a free colony apart from Cape Town, under the British Crown.
It contains 17,800 square miles, that is about the size of Switzer-

1881. GRIQUALAND WEST— DIAMOND FIELDS. 383

land, or one-third the size of England and Wales : the population
is 45,277, about half that of CardifiF. The climate is fine and
healthy, dry, and bracing. Nearly the whole country is over
3,000 feet above the sea, but bare and unfertile. Kiinberley (the
capital) contains over 20,000 inhabitants. It has to be supplied
with water from the Vaal river, from which it is pumped and lifted
500 feet a distance of seventeen miles through wrought-iron pipes.
Kimberley is the centre of the Diamond Fields. The discovery
of these in 1867 when a little Boer girl picked out the first
diamond from the roots of an old tree is the most important event
in the economical and social history of South Africa. Three years
later the diamonds were found in strange circular deposits or
patches isolated one from another. At first the digging was simple
and cheap, the mere turning up and searching of loose soil, and
the rule was, each digger for himself. But as men dug deeper in
their claims it waa found necessary to amalgamate; and the
second stage was reached, for the deeper they went the more
necessary was machinery to hoist the soil to the surface. In ten
years time each one of these circular areas had been so far emptied
of soil as to represent great quarries, 100 to 200 yards across and
300 to 400 feet deep. These circular basins are each a species
of volcanic crater, hollowed out in the surface rock by subterra-
nean action, and filled up to their brim with a blue mud in
which the diamonds are found. The third stage had now been
reached, further combination was necessary, and all wai| now in
the hands of companies. Bound each great basin or quarry is a
circle of steam-engines working wire-rope lifts up and down to
the bottom of the quarry, and round the brink run locomotives to
remove the hard " blue " right away to where it is taken in hand
by other washing machinery and passed through a series of rotatory
sieves. There are 378 engines at work, averaging ten-horse power
each, and 160 miles of tramway. Each bit of machinery, all the
rails and sleepers, cost 20/. per ton to bring up from the coast. The
day's work, tumbled into small snuff-boxes, will frequently reach a
local value of 1,000/. The largest diamond yet found, the Star of
the South, eighty-three carats weight, was sold to Lord Dudley for
11,000/. Out of every 100 tons of blue raised from the quarry an
ounce weight of diamonds is secured. About 1,000,000/. have been
invested in the machinery, but much of it is going to wreck. About
15,000,000/. have been paid away in labour. 1,200 Europeans,
and about 8,500 natives, are employed in the mines. The weekly

384 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

wage of the first is from 4:1, to 5/., and of the latter 25s. with
lodgings. The total amount paid away weekly is not less than
18,000/., which is at the rate of 1,000,000/. sterling a year. Some-
thing under 40,000,000/. worth of diamonds in the rough are esti-
mated to have been raised since 1867. The yearly exports which
pass through the registration office amount to nearly 3,000,000/. a
year, and at least another half million pounds worth every year of
stolen diamonds find their way out of the country. Naturally there
are ups and downs in the industry and speculations, and shares
worth 15/. one year, fetch only 5s. the next; and sometimes several
of the companies pay no dividends at all ; then trade is stagnant
and insolvencies frequent; claims which were worth thousands are
now worth nothing. A fourth stage in the mining has now been
arrived at. The sides of the quarries, which are as deep as the
cross at the top of St. Paul's is high above Cheapside, are falling
in, and regular mining shafts have now to be sunk.

Thus, as years go by, the cost of getting out these diamonds in-
creases steadily ; and the all-round price of diamonds has fallen fi-om
3/. to 15s. per carat. Up to 1867 only 50,000/. worth of diamonds
were anually produced, chiefly from Brazil ; a new supply of over four
million pounds' worth per annum has for ten years been flooding
the market. Several of the smaller mining companies, and also
those owning the less profitable mines, have ceased work, for the
cost of production is so excessive that nearly the whole of the value
received is absorbed in working expenses. It seems probable that
even the larger mines will also reduce operations, if for no other
reason than to keep up the prices by limiting the output to about
two millions per annum. It is estimated that every year from
one-fifth to one-sixth of the stones exported are stolen. One mine
reckons tha.t it loses each year 200,000/. in an output of 1,000,000/.
by this illicit diamond trade (I.D.T. as it is called). All through
the process of diamond digging there is ample opportunity for pick-
ing up a stone which is sure to be worth pounds and may be worth
thousands. Directly they are over the border into the Free State
or into Cape Colony they are safe.^ The diamonds are found in
paying quantities in four or five out of fifty or more " dead mud "
volcanoes ; but similar supplies may exist elsewhere, and probably
do, under better conditions of access and working, and then good-

^ The Cape Parliament and the Free State Volksraad have now (September, 1885)
each passed a law making it possible to prosecute in Cape Colony and the Orange
State for diamond-thefts committed in Griqualand.

1881. GRIQUALAND WEST— TRADE ROUTE. 386

bye to the mushroom success of Griqualand West. Kimberley
hopes to be known, if the worst comes to the worst, as " a great
trade centre," when the railway connecting it with Cape Town
(640 miles away) is completed. It hopes to command the best
high road for "European commerce and civilisation," and to be a
centre of distribution to the two Dutch Republics and the interior
to the north. Tens of thousands of natives have come down from
the interior to work in the mines, arriving in droves from places in
Central Africa of which we scarcely know the names ; and they
have earned back from the storekeepers and others a variety
of articles of British manufacture. Most of them have a great
ambition to possess a gun of their own. Cape Colony charges 20s.
customs duty on every gun-barrel imported into the colony, and an
ad valorem duty of 12 per cent. more. In Griqualand another 2s, 6d.
is charged as tax on the gun entering that province, and 10s. on
every gun sold, making 12s. 6d. besides an ad valorem duty. These
guns are purchased in England for 7s. 6d, each ; they are commonly
designated " gas-pipes ; '* a good many of them burst long before the
natives reach the end of their journey.^ Such is the trade route to
the interior which the Home Government is urged to keep open at
the expense of the English taxpayer, for the benefit of the Cape tax-
levyer, who get 40s. upon a 7s. 6d. article ; and such is one of the
means by which the returns of the customs dues have trebled since
the opening of the Diamond Fields. One enterprising firm in a
few years has managed to build up a trade of over 300,000/. a year.
But already the natives, instead of buying British manufactures in
the shape of clothes and goods, try and secrete their earnings about
them when they dare to go back, preferring to save the money to
get cows, and with cows (nine is the usual number) to buy a wife.
Some of the English traders, however, complain that this falling oflf
of the demand for their merchandise by the natives is owing " to
the curious fiscal arrangements of the Transvaal," whose custom-
house officers stop the natives on the trade route, wishing to levy
some far smaller percentage than the Cape Colony or Griqualand has
already levied on the valuable property they are loaded with.

There are certainly two sides to every picture ; and both the
prosperity of the Diamond Fields and the trade with the interior
are evidently more or less precarious. It is evident also that the
story of the pot calling the kettle black may still find application
even in South Africa.

^ Proceedings of the JtoycU Colonial Institute, vol. xv. p. 101.
VOL. I. C C

386 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCUASTE. 1881.

In Griqualand West every native is obliged to be in possession of
a ticket or pass, descriptive of his employment, and naming the
master for whom he works. It is common also for native children
to be indentured as servants to the colonists, for fifteen years.
The Dutch farmers have the reputation of beinjj very good to these
children, who grow up and associate on equal terms with their own
little ones.

(h) The Transkei territories lie between Cape Colony and Natal
and occupy an area of 12.065 square miles — about one-tenth the
size of Great Britain and Ireland. These large tracts of Kaffirland
have been annexed since 1877. They have lately been re-grouped,
under three chief magistrates each with several subordinates, as
Griqualand East (the portion nearest to Natal), Tembuland (the
central), and the Transkei proper (which lies immediately across the
Kei river and comprises Fingoland and the country of the ex-chief
Kreli). A portion of these territories is annexed to Cape Colony;
another portion is not annexed, although governed by officials
from Cape Town; and another portiou is independent. Almost
every tribe differs from every other in the character of its relations
to the Government. Urnquikela, the paramount overlord of the
Pondo clans, who are said to number 200,000 souls, distinctly
objects to British supremacy, and denies the right of the British
Government to assume a protectorate over the coast of Pondoland ;
but he states " he is prepared to enter into negotiations with any
nation or nations having for their object the opening of ports on
the Pondo coast, and the development and advancement of his
country/' The British Government has, however, taken the pre-
caution of proclaiming the port and estuary of St. John s river to
be under their protection, and the Cape customs dues are levied
tiiere since 1881.

In his memorandum *' on the native question/' dated October
19th, 1882, General Gordon (then employed by the Cape Government
with reference to the Basutos) wrote as follows : —

" The present state of the Transkei is one of seething discontent
and distrust, which tlie rivalry of the tribes alone prevents breaking
out into action, to be quelled again at great expense and by the
ruin of the people, and upset of all enterprise to open up the
country. Throughout the Transkei there is one general clamour
against the Government for broken promises, for promises made and
never kept. Magistrates complain that no answers are given to
their questions, and things are allowed to drift along as best they

1881. TRANSKEI TfiKRITORIES. 387

can. A fair open policy towards the Pondos would obtain from them
all the colony could require, but as things are now the Pondos are
full of distrust, and only want the chance to turn against the colony.
The Pondos, a far inferior people to the Basutos, are happy under
their own chiefs, far happier than the natives of Transkei. There
are in Transkei 399,000 natives, and 2,800 Europeans. Therefore,
for the benefit of these 2,800 Europeans, 399,000 natives are made
miserable, and an expenditure of 210,000/. is incurred by the
colony with the probability of periodical troubles."

Many Cape colonists desire to be entirely rid of the Transkei
territories, and to hand them over like Basutoland to the English
Government. At present Cape Colony is endeavouring to do what
it is almost impossible for a young colony to do. It finds great
difficulty in managing its own aflfairs, and yet there are people
in England who propose to annex to Cape Colony other huge
territories north of Griqualand West, carved out of Betschuanaland ;
and because they do not wish Great Britain to undertake the re-
sponsibility of annexing Betschuanaland they ask Cape Colony to do
so instead, and to undertake the protection of provinces a thousand
miles away, in which the natives greatly out-number the white
inhabitants, and where the white inhabitants are at loggerheads
among themselves. Meanwhile, in Cape Colony itself, the Kaffir
and the Fingo, by perfectly peaceful means, along a certain line
drive back and dispossess their white conquerors, who find it more
profitable to sub-let their land to native tenants than to continue
farming in black man's country. It is a question whether in
KaflFraria and in Natal the experience of Central America may
not be repeated, and Europeans have to give way to the peaceful
re-conquest of the inferior race.

II. Natal was discovered by Vasco da Gama in 1497, on
Christmas Day : hence its name. Up to 1822 it belonged to the
Zulus under the overlordship of Chaka; in 1838 his brother
Dingaan succeeded him by the help of the Boers ; in 1841 it
belonged to the latter ; in 1843 the British took it from them ; in
1845 it was separated from the Cape Colony, and has been a
Crown colony since 1856. Responsible government was oflFered by
Lord Kimberley, but declined by the colonists. The Lieutenant-
Governor is appointed from Downing Street, and has a legislative
council of thirty members. Seven members are nominated by the
Ciown, and the others elected by the white inhabitants only ; the
franchise is property worth 501., or rental of 10/. The executive

c c 2

388 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

council consists of eight members, of whom two are nominated by
the Governor from the deputies elected to the legislative council,
while the rest are ex-officio members. The two chief towns in Natal
are Durban on the coast, and Pietermaritzburg, forty-five miles
in the interior, connected with it by rail ; each have over 14,000
inhabitants.

Natal has an area of 21,150 square miles, and a coast line of
over 200 miles in extent. The population is much thicker per
square mile than that in Cape Colony, but is not more than half
as large. There are said to be 400,000 natives, over 20,000
Indian coolies, and only 30,000 -Europeans in Natal, or about one
white man to every fourteen black. The white population is thus
about the same as that of Perth, in a country as large as Scotland.
lu this colony, which is generally held to be the most distinctively
English in South Africa, half the whites are Dutch, and the other
half are Germans, English, and other Europeans.

One-sixth of the total area of Natal has been set apart for
KaflBr occupation, another sixth remains as Crown land, and the
remaining two-thirds have been acquired by Europeans. The
native tribes (as in the Dutch republics of the Orange Free State
and Transvaal) are debarred from the franchise : they live apart on
their locations — a great many of them are refugees from Zululand —
and with each tribe resides a white magistrate. It is hoped in
time to accustom the KaflBrs to regular industry, and to individual
ownership of property. There is a tax on every native hut of
145. Some of the KaflSrs have squatted on the unoccupied
Crown lands in the interior, and many live by regular labour on
the white man's farms; but though they have increased four-
fold since the English took the country, and are hardy, able-bodied
men, they are generally averse to such work, and hence the Indian
coolie has been imported ; chiefly, however, for labour on the sugar
plantations on the coast. The coolies are bound to remain three
years but many remain permanently, with their wives and
children.

The total imports of Natal in 1882 were set down at 2,216,000/.,
and in 1883 at 1,750,000/., being as usual chiefly cotton, woollen, and
iron goods from England. The value of exports is set down at over
831,000/.; wool and unrefined sugar constitute the larger pro-
portion. Many of the exports of Natal, particularly the wool,
come from the two neighbouring Dutch republics, which also
absorb more than one-third of the imports.

1881. NATAL— ZULUL AND. 380

In 1883 the revenue, which is drawn chiefly from the customs
(whicli are from 7 to 40 per cent, ad valorem), and from the native
hut tax, excise, and a few land sales, brought in 963,000/. The
expenditure stood at 760,000/. There is a debt of over 2,500,000/.,
the greater portion of which was incurred for the construction of
railways ; of these, however, only ninety-eight miles are yet open,
and 116 miles are under construction.

Natal is separated by the great cliff of the Drakenberg
mountains from the Transvaal and Orange republics, and by
the Tugela river from independent Zululand on the north.
The latter, owing to the great number of Zulus in Natal, is a
constant source of trouble and anxiety. Zulu aflFairs are not under
the Cape Government or the High Commissioner ; they are left to
the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, acting on instructions received
straight from Downing Street. Hitherto the British policy, pur-
sued by whichever party happened to be in power at home, has
caused the largest possible amount of bloodshed, and has led to
chaos, cruelty, and a saturnalia of slaughter almost impossible to
realise in England, even though it has cost, and is costing, the
British taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds every year ; nor
is it of any earthly use to any human being whatsoever. This
may be unavoidable — it may be even justifiable ; all that is here
to be noted is that it is indisputable that such is the fact.
When Ketchwayo*s power was destroyed at Ulundi, Sir Henry
Bulwer, the Lieutenant-Governor at Natal, who had zealously and
consistently opposed the warlike policy of Sir Bartle Frere on the
ground that neither Ketchwayo nor his subjects had given just
cause for attack, recommended the establishment of a protectorate
with the Queen as paramount overlord over the clan chieftains of
this fine nation. To set up such a form of govemment, wbich
would have been carried on through the native chiefs, under the
Lieutenant-Governor as representative of the Queen, would have
cost (he reckoned) 6,000/., and when once established would have
been self-supporting. But the suggestion was disallowed by the
Tory Government, who therein did but follow the uniform policy
of the Colonial OflBce since 1858, in which year on December the
18th Earl Grey wrote on an almost precisely similar occasion to
the High Commissioner in South Africa : " When we retire from
Kaflfraria you will distinctly understand that any wars, however
sanguinary, which may afterwards occur between the diflferent tribes
and communities left in a state of independence beyond the colonial

390 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, ' 1881.

boundary, axe to be considered as aflFording no ground for your
interference. After the experience which has been gained as to
the eflFects of British interference in the vain hope of preserving
peace among the barbarous and semi-civilised inhabitants of these
distant regions, I cannot sanction a renewal of similar measures."

Sir Garnet Wolseley divided Zululand into thirteen petty states,
each independent of the other. There had been sixty-three clan-
chiefs under Ketchwayo as overlord : and thus fifty ambitious and
disappointed aspirants were shut out from their share of the spoil.
They were bound however to refer their quarrels to the arbitration
of a British Resident, to give up all the fire-arms they might
have, to acquire no more, and to admit no white men into their
territories. These stipulations were found impossible to be carried
out. Each chieftain was desirous of thrashing his neighbour, and,
as is inevitable in the neighbourhood of white men, they all found
volunteers, not only Dutch but English also, who aided them in
their intertribal wars, and received land and cattle in reward.

We pledged ourselves solemnly, however, to the thirteen who
had accepted their dangerous position at our invitation and under
our guarantee that Ketchwayo should never return, that "the
dynasty of Chaka was deposed for ever " till, in Sir Garnet's
words, " the rivers flowed upward from the sea."

We broke our word, and Ketchwayo was restored. The chiefs
who were to be displaced in his favour would not submit peaceably
to his revived claims of sovereignty; they protested against our
flagrant breach of faith, and the natives generally armed them-
selves in anticipation of coming anarchy. Four of the greatest,
John Dunn, Hlubi, Oham and Usibepu, were most vehemently
opposed to his restitution. It was therefore arranged that John
Dunn (the son of an English missionary in Natal who had
adopted Zulu customs and mode of life) and Hlubi, a Basuto, who
between them held all the north-west of Zululand, should
surrender all their territorial rights to the British; while Oham, a
brother of Ketch wayo's who had deserted him in the war and
joined the British, but who was supposed now to be weak, was left
to be eaten up if he would not acknowledge his brother, and Usibepu
a cousin of Ketch way o's was declared to be altogether independent
with his clan, and Ketchwayo was not to interfere with him.
This last arrangement encouraged all the other nine chiefs to strive
for independence also. Ketchwayo on the other hand was not
content with the restoration of only part of his kingdom. He was

1881. ZULULAND. 391

deeply aggrieved at the establishment of the Reserve territory;
this amounted to one quarter of his former kingdom, and was
originally to have been one half. He was debarred from es-
tablishing military kraals, or from organising his rule in the old
way. Every chief strong enough to resist refused to submit to
him as overlord ; and in spite of the prohibition of the English
Government he began to levy troops in the Reserve, and like so
many others, to call in the aid of white volunteers. He began
a war with Usibepu, whose independence had been stipulated by
the English : (" we assigned a kingdom to Usibepu, we did not
guarantee him rule : ") and at first Ketchwayo, with the help of
the Usutus, defeated him and slaughtered 600 men. After
Ketchwayo 's death he and Oham took refuge in the Reserve-
This Reserve is now over-crowded by Zulus flying from the miser-
able anarchy in which their country is overwhelmed. It requires
a garrison of 3,000 British troops to protect it, it costs England
100,000/. a year, and it perpetuates the anarchy of the rest of
Zululand by providing a retreat and a place where defeated
chiefs can reorganise their forces. " The task of defending the
Reserve, and of maintaining order and peace in it, is tenfold, if not
twentyfold, greater than would be the case of defending the whole
of Zululand."

On the death of Ketchwayo Sir Henry Bulwer again suggested
an English protectorate of Zululand ; but Lord Derby in a des-
patch Sept. 13th, 1884, wrote: "The condition of Zululand since
1879 has been one of chronic war, carried on by barbarous reprisals,
and opinion is hopelessly divided as to the degree of blame to be
assigned to each chief or party. But beyond an earnest endeavour
to bring about peace by persuasion beyond the Reserve, and the
maintenance of the integrity of the Reserve itself as a place of
refuge for either party without distinction. Her Majesty's Govern-
ment do not consider that it would be right for them to inter-
vene;" and in the same month replied to a deputation at the
Colonial Office : " I have heard the argument used to-day, and I
think it is an argument not used for the first time, that we are
under a moral obligation to take care of Zululand and to protect
the natives of Zululand against their enemies, because they went
to war with us and were beaten. Now, I say distinctly I do not
recognise a moral obligation of that kind. Why, Sir M. H. Beach
who held at that time the office which I now hold, from the first
distinctly repudiated any idea of annexing Zululand or of extending

392 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 188L

autLority over it, and a policy of annexation or a protectorate
never has been accepted in this office — not even at the time when the
Government was in power which was supposed to be most favour-
able to any bias of this kind. Neither at the end of the Zulu war
would an annexation of any part of the country have been tolerated
by public opinion. We should have been involved in a responsi-
bility for the wholes native race north of Natal, to which we are
hardly equal, and that again would further complicate our relations
with the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. You know that
a protectorate means annexation. It is the same thing; and when
you have annexed Zululand, what next? Why, you have got
other tribes beyond ; you will always have the risk of disturbance
upon that frontier of the colony, and the further you go with the
frontier, the only dilFerence is that the further you are from your
own resources, and the more difficult a border war is to deal with
when you have to make it. But what I wanted to say on that
head is that, so far as moral obligation goes, I think that is a very
fair question to argue who wa5 in the right or who was in the
wrong when war bi'fcween us and the Zulus first broke out. But
when we have restored to them their territory, except a com-
paratively small strip which we require for our own security, and
when, after trying various modes of helping them to govern them-
selves we have left them to manage their own affairs in their own
way, I do not think that further obligation arises consequent upon
the circumstances i)f that war. I am bound to say that I have
not heard anythinu to-day or anything before that induces me to
depart from that which has been the policy of all parties in England
since the Zulu war — that, namely, of declining to take upon our-
selves the government of the Zulu country."

And undoubtedly there are difficulties in the way of again
breaking our word after so often protesting that we would have
nothing to do with Zululand. A policy of annexation does not
find favour generally in England, and certainly is not universally
popular in South Africa. It is doubtful whether England could
legally proclaim such a protectorate now without the concurrence
of France and Germany and the other European Powers : for at
the Congo Conference it was stipulated that after the signing of
the definite treaty by the Powers " no annexation or protectorate
should be proclaimed on the coasts of Africa, unless the Power
intending to annex territories or proclaim a protectorate first sub-
mitted its intentions to the other signatory Powers." If it were

1881. ZULULAND. 393

determined to carry out such a scheme, it is not possible to believe
that now (whatever might have been the case immediately after
XJlundi) more than a fraction of the Zulu tribes and chiefs would
view with a favourable eye the rule forced upon them by their
former conquerors ; while another section now consider themselves
pledged to the youthful son of Ketchwayo, and would look for
assistance to the numerous Dutch, who are at present occupying
so large a portion of Zululand. For, considering that the Zulus
had been left quite long enough to stew in their own juice, many
Dutchmen have tried to take the pot off the fire, or, at any rate,
help themselves to some of its contents.

The Dutch farmers of the Transvaal would not consent to have
the country adjoining their farms kept in one constant hubbub of
war, when they had the will and the power to prevent it ; and the
English had over and over again stated they would not keep the
peace. Accordingly, when last winter many of the farmers, on
the usual trek of Boers for winter pasture (800 in all, 250 from
the English colonies of Natal and Cape Colony, 200 from the Free
State, and 350 from the Transvaal), came down driving their flocks
to farms leased from Zulus over the border, they resolved to assist
Dinizulu, Ketchwayo's son, in putting an end to the long-protracted
state of disorder, by placing him on the throne of Zululand. They
acted at the desire of some chiefs ; one of these is said to have
been XJsibepu, who had at one time taken arms against the Boers,
and who represents the most powerful party in Zululand. They
succeeded, peace was restored, and Dinizulu crowned as King of
the Zulus. On May 23rd, 1884, an agreement was entered into
between the king and his principal advisers and chiefs, by which
the Boers undertook not only to restore order and peace in Zulu-
land, but to maintain it. In return the king and his chiefs gave
up a certain part of Zululand situated on the frontiers of
the South African Republic and the Reserve territory, with per-
mission to the Dutch settlers to establish there an independent
government. The agreement was countersigned by William
Grant, the agent of the London Aborigines Protection Society.
The country was called the New Republic, a government
nominated, and laws projected. Dinizulu furthermore put
all the other part of Zululand and the Zulu nation under the
protectorate of the New Republic. On the 5th August they
nominated a government and founded the capital, Vrijheid (or
Liberty). By August, 1885, there are already 300 to 400 people

394 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

living in Vrijheid, while the whole white population of the
New Republic is probably about 4,000. The *' Volksraad " has
held already two sittings. The financial state of the countiy
is favourable. The State has no debt, and the taxes will give
suflBcient revenue to pay the expenses of the Government. On
April 30th, 1885, they sent, through the Lieut.-Governor of Natal,
a protest to the British Government against the hoisting of the
British flag in their territory, for on the 18th of December, 1884,
Lieutenant William John Moore, of H.M.S. Goshawk, hoisted it at
St. Lucia Bay. By treaty of the 5th of October, 1843, the Bay of
St. Lucia was parted with to Panda, then chief and king of the
Zulus, and as this treaty has never since been cancelled or amended,
they hold that it still belongs to the heirs of Panda ; and that
the present king, Dinizulu, therefore, is the only person who has
any rights over St. Lucia Bay. As he put the whole of Zululand
under the New Republic, they claim to be alone entitled to the
bay, have occupied it, and transformed it into a free port open to
all nations equally without any customs dues whatsoever. The
New Republic hope that the British Government will acquiesce
in this means of pacifying Zululand ; since their State does not
cover an inch of land which is either British territory or under
British protection. Lord Derby in November, 1884, expressed an
opinion that "it would be desirable to defer opening direct
communications with the ' New Republic,' at all events until
Mr. Joubert has taken up his position as President, and has
notified the same to Her Majesty's Government." Mr. Esselen
(the state secretary of the New Republic) came to London in
August, 1885, on a special mission to the British Government.
He had been here previously as President Kriiger's secretary.
He is the son of a German missionary and was born in South
Africa, educated in Germany and Holland, and has graduated at
Cape University.

Up to the present we have persisted in trying to wash our
hands of the whole Zulu business ; and yet illogically have kept a
handful of British troops in the Reserve, to prevent either the
colonists or the Dutch from putting things straight, under the
pretence of defending the natives. A characteristic feature of
the whole business is that we carefully keep such a stake in
Zululand as serves to engage our "responsibility," and yet we
throw every possible obstacle in the way of a real settlement.
Our policy hitherto has been to remain without settling anything,

1881. THE TWO DUTCH REPUBLICS. 395

but hampering the natural development of things, and sedulously
stirring the witches* cauldron.

There are only two courses, either one of which it is open to us
to pursue. Either we may retire completely from the ridiculous
position we occupy in the country and let the best man win —
in which case, in the event of continued disturbance, the Dutch
will soon restore peace, for when once they were masters they
would soon stop the tribal wars in their own interest; this is
thorough, businesslike, and comparatively humane. The other
course is, annex Zululand to the British empire, not to the colony
of Natal, which never could rule it. Set one supreme Besident to
rule as overlord through the clan chiefs, and peace would be
restored and the country be self-supporting, as taxes would be
paid by Zulus for protection and good government. There is no
middle course between these two ; one or other must ultimately
be adopted. The only question is whether it is not now "too
late " for the latter to be practicable, seeing that the Dutch have
anticipated us in getting a hold upon the country through a
properly constituted king ; and whether the former is not the only
possible one.

{B.) The Two Dutch Sepublics,

Besides the two British colonies on the coast and their depen-
dencies there a re two independent Dutch republics in the interior;
and the country they cover is far better and more fertile than that
occupied by the two English colonies. The Dutch in South Africa
have ever exhibited the great Teutonic instinct of trekking or
making tracks ever further afield, although in a more acute and
undisciplined form perhaps than their Anglo-Saxon cousins. This
trekking, the outcome of their preference for a rude wandering
patriarchal life, has been engrained in the race for generations, and
began very early in the history of Cape Colony. But the so-called
" great trek" was in 1836. Slavery was abolished throughout the
British empire in 1834. The Dutch of Cape Colony complained,
just as the English West Indian planter complained, that spite
of all the loud boasting of the emancipationists in England, they
had not received one-fifth of the real value of their forcibly
manumitted slaves ; not living on islands like the West Indian they
were able to seek a remedy which was not open to the other.
On leaving Cape Colony they solemnly declared, **We quit this

396 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 188U

colony under the full assurance that the English Government has
nothing more to require of us, and will allow us to govern our-
selves without interference in future." They first spread over
what is now Natal, afterwards some of their sons (often a family
consists of fourteen or fifteen, who, as they grow up, have to swarm
off like their fathers before them) trekked still further, and the
Orange River Free State and the Transvaal, now two totally
independent Dutch commonwealths, are the result.

I. The Orange River Free State lies to the east of Natal and
Basutoland, and has the Transvaal on its northern, Griqualand on
its western, and Cape Colony on its southern sides. From the
latter it is separated by the Orange River which flows 900 miles
across South Africa, and falls into the Atlantic about 300 mile&
north of Cape Town. The area of the Free State is 70,000 square
miles, or about twice the size of Natal, and one-third that of
Cape Colony ; thus it is considerably larger than Ireland. Of the
total population of 133,518, nearly one half are white; these number
over 61,000, and of them there are nine Dutch to every one
English. About one quarter of the white settlers have emigrated
from Cape Colony, but the rest are free born. The proportion of
whites to natives is thus far larger in the Free State than
elsewhere in South Africa, and in one respect there is a striking
difference between them and their cousins in Cape Colony ;
only about 2 per cent, of the white population over seven years
of age are unable to read or write, instead of 34 per cent. The
educational system is excellent ; teachers obtain as much as 200Z.
salary, and allowances from Government, besides fees of firom 5s. t
Ss. per pupil. The magisterial system also throughout the Republic
is admirably arranged. As regards the Dutch policy towards the
natives, the British mind is inflamed by stories of barbarities resting
on very slender and one-sided evidence. As a rule it is quite wrong
to suppose that the Boers are cruel to the natives. They deal with
them on the patriarchal system, and manage them far better than
the English settlers do ; they are more severe with them, but at the
same time are more kind, treating them exactly like children. In
the Free State every Boer has five families attached to his farm,
and they are not allowed to leave the farm to which they are
attached. A similar rule prevails in the Transvaal, where, as well
as in Griqualand West, no natives are allowed to move about the
country without a permit from their employers. The same rule
held good in England as regards white men, vagrants and tramps,

1881. ORANGE RIVER FREE STATE. 397

until comparatively recently. In some parts of the Transvaal the
land is let on the initayer system, that is to say, the natives take
the land from the farmer and pay him half the profit, and some of
the natives among whom this system prevails are the finest and
most prosperous in South Africa. Unrestricted liberty is a doubt-
ful blessing to a native population ; it leads not to their advance-
ment, but to their degradation, and to the enriching of grog-sellers
and brandy merchants, among whom the strongest advocates of
unlimited freedom for the blacks are always to be found. A policy
of firm guidance and strict rule, combined with paternal protection,
is found all the world over to be the most merciful and best for
the less developed races when in contact with the higher.

The independence of the Orange River Free State dates from
1854, two years earlier than that of Natal, when the English
abandoned the colony which they had established in 1848 to the
north of the Orange River. The legislative power is vested in a
Volksraad consisting of fifty-five membera, who are elected by
universal sufirage of white adult males, of whom there are about
14,000 in the republic. Every two years half the membei*s retire,
and a new election takes place.

The President of the Republic, who is elected by universal sufifrage
for five years, has the chief executive power. Sir John Brand was
re-elected in 1883 for the fifth period of five years ; and it is largely
to his sagacity that the steady growth of this thriving republic
is due.

The Orange River Free State is mainly a grazing country ; the
scarcity of water renders much of it unfit for agriculture. In 1881
there were over 5,000,000 sheep (or half as many as in the whole
of Cape Colony) in it, 464,000 cattle, 131,000 horses, and 673,000
goats. The number of farms was 6,000, with a total area of
23,500,000 acres between them. The saleable value of 1,000 acres
is 250^. on an average. The mineral wealth of the country is
undeveloped ; there are rich coal mines waiting to be worked, and
diamonds, garnets, and other precious stones have been discovered
in various parts.

The exports and imports of the republic are included in the
returns of the Cape and Natal ports. Wool, hides, and ostrich
feathers are their chief items of trade. As far as finance goes, the
republic is in a fairly satisfactory condition. For one strongly-
held Boer opinion is, that to borrow money is to lose independence ;
and the Volksraad of the Free State is altogether averse from making

398 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 188 U

use of other people's money. At the end of 1884 it was found that
the State was in debt 100,000^., by far the greater part of which
had been spent in erecting bridges, and otherwise improving the
communications in the republic. The Volksraad at once
determined to pay the whole sum oflf bodily in three years ; and to
do this the Boers at once assented to a heavy increase in taxation.
The usual opinion held in England is that the Dutch Boer objects
altogether to paying taxes ; and yet the Boers of the Free State
have taxed themselves with a land-tax of Is. on every 1,000 acres ;
with a poll-tax of II. on all whites not landowners, and 10s. on ever}^
native, with a salary tax of 1 per. cent on all salaries, and a property-
tax on all town properties. The new land-tax is to bring in 15,000/.
for the three years, the salary and white poll tax 13,000/., and the
town property and native poll taxes 5,000/. each. It were well if
other larger States had the same national repugnance to State
debts, and taxed themselves as readily to pay oflf those which
they have contracted.

The Dutch Republics have also a military system which at the
moment draws forth the whole fighting force of the nation. Each
burgher or citizen is liable to be called out on commando, and must
appear armed and provisioned for eight days. If retained in the
field any longer the State provides provisions. Contrast this with the
English merchants and storekeepers in the neighbouring colony,
most of whom are dwellers in towns, and therefore engaged in
pursuits which do not render the use of the rifle familiar to them,
and who therefore prefer to have their fighting done for them by
the Home Government ; and many of whom — old Cape colonists
of English descent have averred it themselves — seek to enrich
themselves by the expenditure which such military operations
necessarily involve. The Dutch farmer is a crack shot from
childhood ; and the Transvaal and Free State combined could
place in the field on commando 15,000 mounted rifles. But
this would only be in the case of an unanimous effort to resist
the imposition of a foreign yoke. In dealing with natives
it is only usual to call out local commandos, which are supplemented
by volunteers.

II. The Transvaal, or South AMcan Republic. — The independence
of the Transvaal was recognised by the British Government in 1852,
two years before that of the Orange River Free State (from which
it is separated by the river Vaal), and four years before Natal
became a separate colony. In the Sand River Convention of 1852

1881. THE TKANSVAAL REPUBLIC. 399

"all right of the English to auy territory north of the River Vaal
was for ever abandoned " to four Republics, which afterwards in
1860 coalesced into one under the name of the South African
Republic. The English guaranteed to the emigrant graziers north
of the Vaal '* full right to manage their own affairs without any
interference on the part of the British Government : " and Great
Britain undertook " never to meddle with any natives north of
llieVaar

Ab regards the annexation of the Transvaal and its retrocession,
probably now most Englishmen will be glad to agree with Lord
Derby, who was a member of each of the cabinets who were
concerned in the two acts : " I do not admit that in our relations
with the Transvaal there is anything of what we here need to be
ashamed ; I quite admit that one great mistake was made. I was
a member of the cabinet that made it, and therefore I should not
make that admission if it were not drawn from me by conviction
that it is a fact. We were misled by what was undoubtedly
mistaken information from South Africa. We believed that the
people of the Transvaal, if not actually desirous of English annexa-
tion, were at any rate not hostile to it, and under that impression
the annexation took place. Undoubtedly it turned out to be a
mistake. I do not believe, whatever unfortunate circumstances
occurred in connection with the withdrawal — I do not believe that
a wiser act was ever done by any Government in this country than
the undoing of the act of annexation, and withdrawing from the
Transvaal." The question arose whether we should keep by force
what we had acquired by injustice: the argument for restitution
was that of common honesty : the argument against it was that we
were injuring our reputation. This latter argument was righteously
and courageously disregarded by Mr. Gladstone.

Speaking at Midlothian in September, 1884, Mr. Gladstone thus
describes what took place in 1880: "We told you that in our
judgment the attempt of the Administration then in power to
pat down the people of the Transvaal, to extinguish their free-
(iom, and to annex them against their will to England, was
scandalous and disastrous. When we came into office we were
assured by all the local agents of the British Government —
and I have no doubt they spoke in honour and sincerity — that the
people of the Transvaal had changed their minds and were per-
fectly contented to be annexed to the British Empire. That made
it our duty to pause for a while ; and for a short time, accordingly.

400 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

we did pause. However much we had opposed the previous
Government, it was our duty not to make changes without good
and suflBcient cause. But before we had been very long in office
the people of the Transvaal rose in arms, and showed us pretty
well what their feelings and intentions were. They obtained
several successes over the limited body of British troops then in
South Africa. We felt it was our absolute duty in those circum-
stances to reinforce our military power in that region, and we sent
a force to South Africa which would unquestionably have been
sufficient to defeat any power the Dutch burghers — the Boers —
could bring into the field against us, but the Boers asked us for an
accommodation. The Jingo party in this country was horribly
scandalised because we listened to that representation. We could
get our force there ready to chastise them ; we might have shed
their blood ; we might have laid prostrate on the field hundreds —
perhaps thousands — of that small community, and then we should
have vindicated the reputation of this country according to the
creed of that particular party. Having ample power in our hands,
we thought — I believe you think — that the time to be merciful Ls
when you are strong. We were strong; we could aSord to be
merciful ; we entered into arrangements with the Transvaal ; and
the Transvaal has at this moment, for all practical purposes,
recovered its independence. Why did we give up the Transvaal ?
We gave it up on consideration of honour and on consideration of
policy. What was the consideration of honour ? It was this —
that when the scheme for taking it was first mooted, Lord
Carnarvon, who was Secretary of State, declared in the name of
this country that it was only intended to take the Transvaal if it
was agreeable to the sense of the population — meaning the white
population. What happened ? There were 8,000 white settlers in
the Transvaal. That was the computed number of adult heads of
families, the gross number being about 40,000. Out of these 8,000,
1,000 were English and miscellaneous, and 7,000 were Dutchmen
— men of strong masculine fibre, reared in the school of Calvin,
which, whatever else may be said of it, made your ancestors a
very strong and determined race. And these 7,000 men subscribed
to a petition protesting against their annexation to this country.
I ask you whether it was possible in honour, possible without the
grossest and most shameless breach of faith, to persist in annexing
them when we had pledged ourselves beforehand that they should
not be annexed except with their own good will ? After stating

1881. THE SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC. 401

to you such a case of honour as that, I am ashamed almost to
refer to the subject of policy. But I will say one word upon that,
and it is this: The people of the Transvaal, few in number, were
in close and strong sympathy with their brethren in race, language,
and religion throughout South Africa. Those men, who are called
Africanders, partly British subjects, and partly not, were as one
man associated in feeling with the people of the Transvaal ; and
had you persisted in the dishonourable attempt, against all your
own interests, to coerce the Transvaal as you attempted to coerce
Afghanistan, you would have had the whole mass of the Dutch
population at the Cape and throughout South Africa rising in
arms against you."

The policy then adopted, to all appearance, is being followed up
deliberately and logically. On February 14, 1884, the Convention
of London was signed by President Kriiger, two Dutch delegates,
and Sir Hercules Robinson. By this the full independence of the
South African Republic was secured, the Queen's suzerainty was
altogether abandoned and the office of British Resident at Pretoria
abolished. " We reserved a right and assumed a responsibility
towards the natives in the Transvaal, but we had not incurred an
obligation, by our former ai rangement, to protect them." The debt
nominally due to England was reduced from 265,000/. to 256,000/.
The legislative power resides in the Volksraad of forty-four
members, who, like those in the neighbouring republic, are elected
for four years, one half retiring every two years. The fiunchise
qualification for white adult males is residence in the republic for
five years, and payment of 25/. fee.

The executive is vested in a President, elected by all who possess
the franchise, for five years. The present President states that he
" surveys politics from a Christian standpoint, and avows in them
the eternal principles of the word of God." " He is all for progress
in the right direction." What this is he has described in the
VolkssUm, or official organ, at Pretoria, September 1882 :

" The first requirement of domestic policy is ' the development
of the resources of the country, so that imports may decrease and
exports increase ; or, to speak more clearly, that we may export
produce and import money, and not (as but too often happens now)
import produce while our money flows out of the country.' The
first resource to be protected and encouraged is agriculture. In the
Transvaal ' the farmer is the tnie nobleman, the landed proprietor
the staunchest supporter of our national welfare, and the one who

VOL. I. D D

403 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

has the greatest interest in the country.* The President will, there-
fore, promote in every way possible the interests of the agriculturist.
He also professes his devotion to free trade. By a system of
concessions already initiated, President Kriiger intends to develop
manufacturing industry in the Transvaal, and he urges the construc-
tion of a railway from Pretoria to Delagoa Bay as * a vital matter
for the republic,' in order that thereby it may have facilities for the
export of its manufactures to other countries. He will encourage
immigration, especially from Holland, but not in too strong a
stream. In the development of the mineral wealth of the country
he advocates the principle of concessions as tending to more pro-
fitable mining by help of machinery ; as securing a steadier revenue
and as keeping the digging community under the control of re-
sponsible persons. With regard to foreign policy. President Kriiger
promises to exert himself so far as can be done without infringing
upon the dearly bought rights of the republic to cordially support
* every eflfort for a closer union between the states and colonies of
South Africa for the purpose of fostering a South African
nationality.' In his native policy — bristling, as he admits, with
difficulties — he will keep in view as a primary principle that
' barbarism should be checked and guided by civilisation.* He
disclaims on the part of the civil power any right of interference
in the internal affairs of ecclesiastical denominations. 'The
political ruler,* he says, * who desires to rule also in the Church of
Christ is imbued with the spirit of Anti-Christ.* '*

When in London, on November 12th, 1883, the President
addressed a memorandum to the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines
Protection Society on the question of treatment of the natives by
the South African Republic. In this he states that he feels " most
deeply hurt by the discovery that in a certain circle in Great
Britain, whose regard and sympathy are fully appreciated by the
Christians in the Transvaal, there still prevails the opinion that the
Transvaal Christians understand less thoroughly than Christians in
this country the duty which they owe towards Indians, Negroes,
Kaffirs, or any other coloured race or nation, as imposed by the
Lord Himself upon them, in common with every one who makes
profession of his faith in our Saviour. Far from regarding the
principles of your societies with any distrust, we heartily approve
of them. We also have learned the sad lessons of history, and
also before our eyes lie open the shameful pages which, to the
indelible disgrace of the Christian name, testify to the inhuman

1881. PRESIDENT KROGER^ MEMORANDUM. 403

barbarities and incredible atrocities which all Europeans, without
distinction of nationality, who came in contact with coloured races
in other parts of the world, committed in former centuries, either
on account of fear or avarice, or by the devilish inspiration ot
cruelty and sinful lust : the frequent bloody intertribal conflicts,
all Christians, be they Englishmen or Transvaalers, deeply deplore.
On hearing what slanders are brought against us, we cannot
refrain from demanding of you, on behalf of the Transvaal, a
share of that same humane compassion which you devote so
largely to our aboriginal neighbours in Africa. We, too, are
men with humane hearts. Have we not an equal claim with the
natives to your sympathy ? And, therefore, may we not candidly
ask you, now that we are thus undeservedly calumniated and
accused, to remember the following series of facts :

" First, when we entered the Transvaal we found the country
almost depopulated by intertribal war, and inhabited by less than
20,000 natives. At present there are over 700,000. This ia
clearly a proof, is it not, that the natives who were in the country
rapidly increased in numbers, and that others entered the country
from the neighbouring territories because they appreciated the
benefits to be derived from our administration ?

"Secondly, the comparatively few natives we found in the
Transvaal were steeped in poverty, hiding in holes and caves, and
living in constant dread of the inroad of neighbouring tribes, who
robbed them of their cattle and murdered their women and
children. At present they live in peace and quiet; they possess
homes, furniture, waggons, some even have acquired what is to
them a considerable portion of wealth — a proof that their social
condition has wonderfully improved.

" Thirdly, notwithstanding the fact that Europeans and natives
have been living together in the Transvaal for more than a
generation, no mixed race is to be found there — a proof that the
native women have not been debased by being made the victims of
lust and passion, as has too often been the case under similar
conditions in other colonies.

" Fourthly, by a law of the Transvaal, every encroachment upon
the rights of natives becomes a criminal offence. Our law affords
the natives even a more ample protection than a similar law in
Natal. And this our law is still exactly the same as it was during
the time in which your Government held the country.

" We would draw your attention to another fact which enters very

D D 2

404 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

deeply into the moral aspect of the question. We Transvaalers
have enacted by law that a native can legally marry one wife only,
so that children born from other women cannot share in the
inheritance. The consequence of this is that women, for the sake
of their children, are gradually refusing to enter in a state of
polygamy ; and thus, by means of this simple measure, considerable
advance has been made towards morality and civilisation. But
while in our country this measure works most admirably, Natal,
for example, still refuses to follow us in this attempt to elevate the
standard of morality, and, consequently, our endeavours are
hindered by the marriage laws of a colony bordering on our
country. But while we make no pretence to have been faultless
in the past, we venture to doubt whether better provision is made
in any country for the protection of the interests of the natives
than in ours. Slavery was declared illegal by our laws in 1837,
and a fine of 500/. is imposed upon every one convicted of selling
or buying a native. No such thing as slavery exists in the
Transvaal. And with regard to the apprenticing of native
children, we wish to inform you that no native child is thus
disposed of before his parents or friends, guardians or relatives,
have been called upon to come forward and claim him or her ;
that as soon as any relative appears the child is delivered over to
him ; and that only if the child remains unclaimed it is placed by
Government under the care of one of the burghers who is willing
to accept the responsibility. Such burgher is then obliged to
clothe and support the child, and is responsible to the Government
for its proper treatment ; and as soon as the child reaches his or
her majority, he or she is given over to the Government, and after
receiving a certain sum of money, is perfectly free.

" Almost pertinaciously we cling to this method, based on human
love and righteousness, though we may not conceal from you that
it is sometimes a very great effort to carry it out to its fullest
extent.

" Permit us to add three remarks to this explanation :
" (1) In every country, in yours too, even in the very centre of
London, shameful crimes are committed every week and almost
every day. Witness the sad facts brought to light in the recently-
published criminal statistics for this metropolis, showing sadly how
many individuals there are who offer themselves as the tools of
Satan. But who would, on this account, think of accusing your
country and your city ? Why, then, should our Government and our

1881. PRESIDENT KRtGEE'S MEMORANDUM. 405

country be persecuted with such bitter accusations because of the
probable existence of a few ruffians and scoundrels? Such an
accusation would then only be just if it could be proved that our
Government took no steps to bring to trial such miscreants after
having duly been made aware of their misdeeds.

" (2) Our second observation is this : During the last war against
Sikukuni atrocities were committed by your own native allies
imder the very eyes of your general, which that officer opposed
most strongly, but which he was unable to prevent at the time.
If. then, the sad experience of your own general incontestably
proves the impossibility of always immediately restraining the
natives in their cruelties during battle, why should we be so
bitterly reproached because we too experienced this impossibility ?

** (3) Our last observation is that, taught by our Lord and Saviour
not to lift up our heads in arrogance, and acknowledging the
fearful power of wickedness which finds its instruments in the
Transvaal as well as in London, we do not wish for a moment to
deny that in the earlier years of our ' trek,' when there was not
even a shade of regular government, and when the struggle for
existence often called forth the worst passions, deeds were done
which cannot be justified before God. But while on that account
we humbly pray to the Lord our God to forgive us the sins that
may have been committed in hidden corners, we cannot see that
for this reason we should be excommunicated by Christian and
civilised Europe. If you, gentlemen, if your societies wish to be of
service to the Transvaalers, we pray you to cause official notice to
be given to our Government of every misdeed which may be
brought to your knowledge, and to suggest to us any measure in
vour opinion calculated to secure the more effectual protection of
the natives, and we pledge our word, as honourable men, that
every convicted burgher will be punished, and every measure
which it is possible to introduce will be thankfully received by us.

" In this way you can assist us, and we will endeavour to assist
you, in accordance with the grave responsibility under which we
all stand before the tribunal of the world, and before the Judgment
Seat of our God."

On each of his visits to Europe President Krliger has been most
heartily received both in Holland and in Germany. In the great
crisis in 1880 the Transvaal had powerful friends in Holland,
active to help their brethren in the far south ; public feeling was
deeply stirred, not only in Holland, but in the greater fatherland, in

406 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

favour of the Boers. Holland is now but a small power, but no
nation forgets lost military or naval greatness, and the Dutch of
the Netherlands feel an intense interest in the Cape Dutch, and
thought they saw a reflection of what they once were in the heroism
of their kinsmen in South Africa. Serious efforts have since
been made to refasten some of the ancient bands which time had
snapped asunder. Recently, also, a still stronger admiration of the
Boers has been expressed by a large portion of the German press,
by the Emperor and by Prince Bismarck. When President Krtiger
visited Berlin in 1884 he was received in state at the palace. The
Emperor declared, *' You represent a community related to Germany
by ties of race. I have always taken a lively interest in the rise
and prosperity of your state, and am all the more gratified that
friendly relations are now about to receive expression by treaty.
I am convinced the growing intercourse will tend to deepen the
feelings that now prevail of friendship between the South African
Republic and the German Empire, and I for my part shall strive
to promote this end." " We are rejoiced," replied President Kriiger,
" at the prospect of friendly relations and commercial intercourse.
How good it is that our visit promises these blessings." The
German Society for Promoting Colonisation further entertained the
delegates from the Transvaal, who then made an impressive appeal
to Germany " to send her emigrants to South Africa instead of
to North America, for South Africa may be Germanised, because
it is largely German already. There are not only the Boers, the
descendants of the early settlers, but many a sturdy farmer
who has sailed in our time from Hamburg. To consolidate
this sympathetic and kindred colony beyond [the seas, what
better basis could be desired than the Transvaal ? There, if
anywhere, is the seat of enterprise and vigour; there, on a
small scale, the policy of blood and iron has been tried and
prospered."

Speaking at Midlothian, September 1884, Mr. Gladstone said :
" If Germany has the means of expanding herself, of sending her
children to unoccupied spaces of the earth, with due regard t,o the
previous rights of other nations, I look with satisfaction, sympathy,
and joy, upon the extension of Germany in these desert places of
the earth, upon the extension of civilisation, upon the blessing to
these waste places by the presence of an intelligent and industrious
community, which will bring from the bosom of the land new
resources for the comfort, advantage, and happiness, of mankind.

1881. THE SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC. 407

Do not suppose for a moment that it is anything but the utmost
meanness for us to be jealous of Germany."

In the Transvaal, however, there is at present no State in the
sense of an organic whole obeying the orders of a Central Govern-
ment. There is the semblance of a State, but decentralisation and
individualism are carried to such an extent that the orders of the
Central Government are set at naught whenever the local landrost
and his neighbours prefer to disobey them. This it is which
renders it so very difficult to deal with the Transvaal, which is but
a loose confederation of a great number of farmers scattered over
an immense teixitory. The area of the Transvaal is estimated at
114,360 square miles — (that is nearly twice the size of England and
Wales, or about that of the kingdom of Italy), and would support a
population of 25,000,000 inhabitants. The native population is
estimated at 1,000,000 ; these are chiefly Betschuana tribes, akin
to those over the western border of the Transvaal, — in the north-
east they are Swazis. The white population are 50,000, or about
one to every twenty natives. Of these there are nine Dutch
to every other European, German, or English. Many English
flocked into the country on the discovery of the gold and diamond
mines in 1867. The southern boundary of the South African
Bepublic is the Vaal River, 200 miles from Durban in Natal, and
700 miles from Cape Town. Its eastern boundary is not forty
miles from Delagoa Bay, which is destined at some future time to
be its port. This was British up to 1875, when by the arbitrament
of the President of the French Republic we gave it up to the
Portuguese. The northern boundary is the Limpopo, or Crocodile
River, on the east is Zululand and the independent Swazis, and on
the west the Betschuana tribes.

The Transvaal is adapted for agriculture as well as stock-raising,
and is possessed of considerable mineral wealth — iron, lead, silver,
tin and gold. Coal is found everywhere lying in vast layers almost
on the surface, up to which the farmers back their waggons and
Hhovel down as much as they may from time to time require. As
yet, all these coalfields, which extend right up to the Zambesi, are
but little worked, owing to the want of cheap transport. An
abundance of iron ore is found close to the coal beds. The southern
and eastern parts of this vast country are over 6,000 feet above the
sea, and consist of rolling grassy plains, with not many natives ; and
the air is pure, dry, and bracing. The northern part of the Transvaal
is densely wooded, and thickly populated with natives ; its climate

408 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

is sub-tropical, as it lies 2,000 feet lower than the southern part.
Over a vast area experts and geologists have discovered traces of
gold, but it has not been much worked yet. It is possible that if
their predictions ai*e fulfilled, science and capital may make out of
the Transvaal a Dutch or German Victoria, but at present those
who have money are not so eager to join in the rush as those who
have none.

The ** trade route " into the interior passes through the western
borders of the South African Republic, but English traders boast
to have learned long ago that, whereas the duties and fees on a
waggon laden with merchandise passing through the Transvaal
legally amount to from SOL to 40/., 51. judiciously ** invested " will
clear any waggon. One consequence of this is, that the national
exchequer is grievously impoverished. Owing also to the great
depression of trade throughout South Africa and the late bad
season, most of the farmers in the Transvaal have found some
diflSculty in paying this year's land-tax, but remittances are now
coming into the Treasury freely. Herds of adventurers, bent on
mineral, diamond, or gold speculations, have also penetrated to the
interior, and forced many of the Boers to sell their farms, and
move further afield. Besides the New Republic established in
Zululand,two other young republics, those of Stellaland (February,
1883) and Goshen have swarmed oflF on the western border. The
South African Republic have as a government disavowed the action
taken by the founders of these republics, and at the present
moment their future appears somewhat precarious.

(C.) TJie Congeries of Native Tribes.

The chief native tribes under Imperial protection are ^asuto-
land, Pondoland (p. 385), Betschuanaland and Swaziland.

I. Basutoland lies to the west of Natal, to the east of Cape
Colony, and to the south of the Orange River Free State ; on its
north border are a large number of protected or semi-independent
native chiefs. It has an area of 10,000 square miles, or is about
half as large again as Wales ; it is a land of mountain and
grass, enjoys a delicious climate, and abounds in iron, copper,
and coal. It has been called the Switzerland of South Africa.
In it there are 400 white people, and a population of 150,000
natives, who are fairly good agriculturists. The Basutos are

1881. NATIVE TRIBES— BASUTOLAND. 409

extremely fond of open and free discussions in public; the
Basuto pitso, with its collection of chiefs and headmen, takes
us back to the beginning of our own constitutional history.
In 1848 the British Government established a semi-protectorate
over them. In 1854 the Orange Free State won its separate
existence as a Dutch Kepublic from the British ; and the Basutos
were also left as an independent nation under their overlord
Moshesh. From 1858 to 1868 Basuto chiefs and pretenders to
chieftainship from time to time trespassed on the territory of the
Free State in prosecution of their incessant feuds, so that the Boer
trade was disorganised, courts closed, and all in confusion through
the incessant disturbances on the border. In 1868 the Free State
completely subjugated the Basutos, with no fear of further trouble
from them, and were about to annex their territory. The British
Government interfered, and again extended their protection over
the Basutos, who were then utterly homeless, beggared, and stai-ving.
By the Convention then entered into at Aliwal North with the
Orange Free State, February 12, 1869, England undertook the
government of Basutoland, and the protection of the border. After
their annexation by the Imperial Government in 1868, the Basutos
settled down, under the government of an agent with a strong
force of police, to peaceful occupations, and became the most
industrious, prosperous, and law-abiding tribe in South Africa;
more land was then cultivated in Basutoland than in an area
twenty times as large occupied by Europeans ; the farms bordering
on Basutoland became the most valuable in the Free State, and
the Dutch flocks and herds roamed at large night and day over
unenclosed pastures ; theft was almost unknown, only three cases
occurring in a year along a border of 180 miles. Basutoland was
the model native territory in South Africa.

In 1871 Basutoland was transfeiTed from Imperial to colonial
rule ; this was against the wish of Cape Colony, and a year before
they had full representative government; it was done by the
High Commissioner, on direct orders from home, and without any
reference to the Basutos themselves. A population of 250,000
contented loyal people, whose government did not entail one penny
of expenditure on the British taxpayer, and whose export and
import trade had developed from nothing in 1866 to 300,000/. in
1871, was transferred to Cape Colony, to be taxed and governed
by a local parliament just new born.

In 1877 came the Galeka war, and a new Cape ministry, whose

410 CRUISE OF n.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

policy resulted in a succession of native wars, "to uphold the
supremacy of the white race over the black," the siTie qud non of
which was to disann the natives by force. Disarmament had
previously been applied to the Basutos in Natal and to the Fingoes
(a tribe who had always been friendly to the British), and now an
attempt was made to extend it to the rest of the Basutos, who
had been loyal and useful to us in our war against the Zulus.
When there seemed a prospect of peace after the defeat of
Ketchwayo, the Cape ministry, in spite of the warning of the
Home Government, of Sir G. Wolseley, and of the missionaries in
Basutoland, that the measure was premature and hazardous, decided
to disarm the Basutos whom they had previously armed when their
services were needed. The measure might have been a wise pre-
caution, if the Cape Government had been strong enough to protect
the Basutos, which also means if it had been strong enough to coerce
them. It was supposed that the disarmament would be carried out
peacefully, just as it had been supposed that Ketchwayo would
have yielded peacefully to the ultimatum addressed to him. But
the Basutos refused to be left at the mercy of other tribes which
they had offended by assisting the whites ; and they doubted the
power of the Cape Government to protect them. In March, 1879,
the chief Moirosi broke into rebellion, and the Cape forces twice
tried to take his mountain by storm, and failed both times most
disastrously; a subsequent attempt to storm the place suc-
ceeded no better, and while his tribe held its own it was too much
to expect the other tribes to disarm. The Cape ministry tem-
porised in November, 1879, and "expressed a hope that when
peace had been restored throughout South Africa the Basutos
would peaceably give up their guns." In August, 1880, Sir Bartle
Frere was recalled ; but in September, 1880, the Cape Government
found themselves in for a regular war with the Basutos. This
had to be carried on entirely by the colonial forces, the Volunteers,
Cape Mounted Rifles, and Kimberley Horse, and the Fingoes who
were again armed and called the " Transkei Militia." The burgher
forces of Cape Colony had to be called out, to the number of
12,000 (native and European together) ; farmers and traders had to
be dragged from their respective occupations, and the lives and
business prospects of the colonists had to be freely sacrificed.
Nearly one half of the male population were placed imder arms.
They all behaved admirably, and their conduct in the field
merited, though it did not meet, success. This was the Basuto

1881. NATIVE TRIBES-BASUTOLAND. 411

war that was being carried on simultaneously with the Transvaal
war, when H.M.S. Bacchante was at Cape Town. After a tedious
struggle, in which neither party obtained a decisive victory, and
the expenditure of many valuable lives and of six millions sterling
out of the scanty exchequer of the Cape Colony, after the Basutos
had been impoverished, the colony humiliated, and the trade
with Basutoland ruined, which, previous to this futile attempt at
disarmament, had been estimated to be worth half a million a year,
in April 1881 Sir Hercules Robinson as High Commissioner
gave his award. The Peace Proclamation Act was passed by
the Cape Parliament in 1882, restoring to the Basutos the full
liberty to possess the guns to preserve which they had broken
into rebellion; the only marks of subservience to colonial authority
demanded being the reception of a few magistrates and the pay-
ment of the hut-tax. Even this, however, was steadily refused
by a section of the Basutos under Masupha son of Moshesh, and
complied with inadequately by the rest. Two rival chiefs broke
out into civil war, and the inability of the Cape Government to
restore order proved beyond question that the colonial authority in
Basutoland was an empty farce. Was the colony to enter on another
war, or abandon Basutoland altogether ? The Imperial Government
declined to assist the colonists with either a shilling or a soldier,
but ** impressed upon them the fact that the privileges of respon-
sible government involved the duties of self defence ; " to which
the colonists answered that " they never desired the government of
huge native territories, and that Basutoland was annexed to Cape
Colony against their wish." As early as March, 1880, the Cape
ministry had appealed to General Gordon — his genius for under-
standing and managing the native character being as well known
at the Cape as in other parts of the world — ^and oflFered him a
military command against the Basutos, which he, however, declined.
But the next year, impressed with the spectacle of the tangled
conflict between the Basutos and the colony, he took the initiative,
and volunteered his assistance towards terminating the war and
administering Basutoland. His aid was then neither declined nor
accepted till the new Cape ministry again invited him in February,

1882. They made him Commandant-General of the Cape Colony,
and he was requested to remodel the colonial military estabUsh-
ment. He agreed in May to vLsit Masupha, under a distinct
understanding with the ministry that if he visited him he could
not afterwards fight him, as he would think that treacherous.

412 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

While Gordon was on a mission of peace in Masupba's kraal, and
arranging as he hoped a pacification with him, the Cape Secretary
for Native Aflfairs instigated a rival Basuto chief, Lerothodi, to
organise a warlike expedition against Masupha. Regarding this
as a breach of faith, General Gordon telegraphed his resignation,
which was as promptly accepted, the Cape premier replying to
General Gordon and " recording his conviction that the con-
tinuance of the General in the position he occupied would not be
conducive to the public interest." Had the Cape been ready to
confide its war department as well as that for native affairs to the
supreme management of General Gordon, the results would
probably have been as honourable and successful, and even as
economical, as at one time was anticipated. But the ministry of
the Cape Colony was not likely, any more than an Imperial
ministry (except for an occasional spasm), to abdicate its right to
treat its officials as servants amenable to its party exigencies. The
general character of the native policy of a colony like the Cape
should have warned any one less chivalrous than General Gordon
that it was not a scene for the display of the attributes of chivalry ;
and that to endeavour to combine the functions of soldier, diplo-
matist and mediator, was certain, here at any rate, to produce an
inconvenient personal dilemma.

Before leaving the Cape, General Gordon wrote a memorandum
on " The Native Question of South Africa " and left it in the
hands of the Cape ministry. The following are some of its
contents.

" 1. The native question in South Africa is not a difficult one to
an outsider. The difficulty lies in procuring a body of men who
will have strength of purpose to cany out a definite policy with
respect to the natives.

" 2. The strained relations which exist between the colonist and
the native are the outcome of employing, as a rule, magistrates
lacking in tact, sympathy, and capacity to deal with the natives ;
in the Government not supervising the action of these magistrates,
and in condoning their conduct while acknowledging those faults
which come to their cognisance.

" 3. The Colonial Government act in the nomination of native
magistrates as if their duties were such sm any one could fulfil,
instead of being, as they are, duties requiring the greatest tact and
judgment. There can be no doubt but that in a great measure,
indeed one may say entirely, disturbances among the natives are

1881. GENERAL GORDON'S MEMO. ON SOUTH AFRICA. 413

caused by the lack of judgment, or of honesty, or of tact, on the
part of the magistrates in the native territories. There may be
here and there good magistrates, but the defects of the bad ones
react on the good ones. Eevolt is contagious and spreads rapidly
among the natives.

" 4. One may say no supervision in the full sense of the term exists
over the action of magistrates in native territories. They report
to headquarters what suits them, but unless some very flagrant in-
justice is brought to light, which is often condoned, the Government
know nothing. The consequence is that a continual series of
petty injustices rankle in the minds of the natives, who eventually
break out into -a revolt, in the midst of which Government does
not trouble to investigate the causes of such revolt, but is occupied
in its suppression. The history of the South African wars is
essentially, as Sir G. Cathcart^puts it, ' Wars undertaken in support
of unjustifiable acts.' "

General Gordon recommended (5 and 6) a Commission "to
inquire patiently and fearlessly into every detail of administration,
the limits of territory of each district chief, and their every
grievance, as the sirie qicd non of any quiet in the native territories,"
and then proceeded : —

"7. It must be borne in mind that these native territories
cost the colony for administration some 6,000Z. per annum for
magistracies ; for the receipts bring only some 3,000/., and the
payments are about 9,000/. per annum. There has also been a
recent expenditure of 150,000/. for regular troops. The administra-
tion of Basutoland is on a scale costing 30,000/. per annum.

" 13. Nothing can possibly be worse than the present state of
afiairs in native administration, and the interests of the colony
demand a vertebrate government of some sort, whoever it may be
composed of, instead of the invertebrate formation that is now
called a government, which drifts into and creates its own
difficulties.

" C. G. Gordon.

*' October 19, 1882."

The policy of the Cape ministry was the same as has always
been applied in all these native imbroglios, from one end of South
Africa to the other, to play off one set of clan-chiefs against
another, and to use the rival claims of the tribes for the furtherance
of their own objects. Not only Cape ministries, but British imperial
and Dutch republican authorities have almost invariably gone that

414 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

way to work. And the natives lend themselves just as easily to
this policy as did the early inhabitants of Britain, when they
invoked the aid of our Saxon ancestors from Germany, and always
with the same consequences. Whoever comes in as the ally of the
one utterly defeats the other, and takes half the tribal territory as
a reward. Ultimately he absorbs the territory left at the first to
his ally.

In this case the Cape ministry sought to play oflF the " loyal "
chiefs Letsea and Lerothodi against the " rebel " Masupha. The
policy had originally failed some months before, and Greneral
Gordon wished to bring moral force to bear upon Masupha by
personal interviews and to obtain a hold over him by constant
intercourse with him. Masupha told General Gordon — " I like the
Dutchmen, they like me, we are friends;" which was a candid
confession for a chief to make whom the British had supposed they
had delivered from the hands of these same Free State farmers.
General Gordon's i<lea from the beginning was to give a kind of
home rule to the Basutos. He offered to stay as Resident with
Masupha for two years, giving up all other employment, and
Masupha was to collect the hut-tax to pay for the subordinate
magistrates and border police that might be necessary.

After Gordon had abandoned South Africa, and left the Cape
ministry to carry out their own policy, the " loyal " chiefs, Letsea
and Lerothodi, who were relied on to reduce Masupha to obedience,
turned out to be broken reeds : and the only alternatives were
either a renewal of the war or the abandonment by the colony of
Basutoland, which in the end of 1882 was in a worse state than it
had ever been in. Mr. Scanlen's government (which came into ofBce
by denouncing Mr. Sprigg's cabinet as one of warlike proclivities)
determined to coerce Masupha at any cost. The Cape Government
however possessed only an army of 900 mounted rifles and 300
infantry. Masupha could bring into the field 8,000 men, and if
joined by the " loyal " chiefs, three times as many. The burghers
of Cape Colony were reluctant to volunteer, for they knew that if
they fought they would not, in the event of conquering the Basutos,
be allowed to finish the war in their own way by the Home
Government, who would step in at the last moment as it had done
before, and prevent any of the land of the natives being taken. It
was proposed to borrow Imperial troops to do the work for the
colony. For 600,000/., the cost of a three months* campaign, it was
reckoned the coercion could be effected. The Africander party in

1881. NATIVE TRIBES— BASUTOLAND. 415

Cape Colony advocated handing Basutoland over to the Orange
Free State. Others proposed to replace Basutoland in the hands
of the Imperial Government as it was from 1868 to 1871. It was
argued that the Basutos had always professed their loyalty to
" the Queen " while objecting to being made the sport of fluctuating
ministries at Cape Town. It was stated that the country was rich
and would be no burden to the British tax-payer, that the expenses
of the Resident, the magistrates, and policemen would be covered as
they had been up to 1871 by a native hut-tax.

In the debate in the House of Lords on the resumption of
Imperial authority over Basutoland, Lord Carnarvon uttered the
prophetic warning — " He was tolerably confident that at present
the great part of the people would accept our rule cheerfally ; but
a few years hence (and he spoke in 1883) questions might arise as
to how far the chiefs themselves would obey." Sir Hercules
Robinson was equally prophetic when he said in the same year : —
"The Basutos should be encouraged and assisted to establish a
system of local self-government, sufE ciently stable to enable them
to suppress crime and settle intertribal disputes . . . but unless
great judgment, tact, forbearance, and, above all, patience are
shown in building up the house again, Her Majesty's Government
may at any time find themselves reduced to the choice of retiring
from the country in the face of defiance, or of sending a consider-
able force to su]jdue or expel some insubordinate chief or chiefs."

After much hesitation, in February, 1884, the Imperial Govern-
ment undertook the charge of Basutoland, the Cape Colony voting
an annual subsidy of 20,000^. a year in aid of the expense thus
entailed upon the Home Government.

Lord Derby, in describing the policy determined on by the
Imperial Government, said : —

" We do not propose to make Basutoland a Crown colony, or to
introduce the costly machinery of European officers. We wish the
Basutos to employ their own machinery of government, and that
they should be governed according to their own customs." But it
was " too late" — what had been done could not be undone. It was
impossible to go back to 1871 as if nothing had occurred in the
interval. The Basutos were no longer the prosperous, contented
and easily-governed people that they were when we first under-
took their protection. They had lost their faith in the Queen s
Government and in white men generally, and they had learned
white men's vices, di-unkenness in particular.

416 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

However, when the Imperial Government took over the country,
a special regulation was introduced, similar to the stringent one
prevalent in the Orange Free State, prohibiting the sale of any
spirituous liquors in Basutoland. But a liking for these liquors has
seized upon the chiefs, and this is at the bottom of their present
opposition to English rule. They fancy also that, having success-
fully resisted the Cape Colony, they are more powerful than ever.
Of the two leading chiefs, Letsea, who claims to be paramount,
made a profession of leading the loyals and accepting all that was
proposed. At the time about two-thirds of the natives followed
him in his nominal asseverations of loyalty, and one-third followed
the other great chief, Masupha, who said he would not come under
the new rule; he would, indeed, be a " Queen's man," but only to
rule for himself in the Queen s name. What has since happened
proves that neither was sincere. They both looked upon British
supremacy as a cheap means of warding off outside foes in general,
and the Free State Boers in particular ; and Masupha has refused
to recognise the British Resident who was sent to uphold Imperial
authority.

The tax of ten shillings on each hut, which in 1871 brought in
20,000/., in 1885 brought in only 5,000/., although the natives
are far more numerous now than they were then. The " rebel "
chiefs and the " loyals " continue their mutual fightings, with the
consequence that large numbers of refugee Basutos, women, children,
and cattle were (and are being constantly still, in 1885) driven
across the River Caledon, which separates the Orange Free State
from British territory. The President of that republic, always a
warm friend of the English, has at last (July 15) formally protested
to the British Government that irregularities of various sorts are
committed within the border of the Free State by British subjects
from Basutoland. He adds that the British Commissioner in
Basutoland has not the necessary force at his disposal to maintain
his authority, and that there will always be danger of disturbance
imtil the British Government shows that it will establish its
authority in Basutoland on a firm basis in accordance with the
treaty of Aliwal of February 12th, 1869. He, however, suggests
that Her Majesty's Government might deem it better to withdraw
entirely from Basutoland and allow the Free State to maintain
direct relations with the Basuto chiefs as the State was accustomed
to do before the said treaty was concluded.

In this protest he is unanimously supported by the Volksraad of

1881. NATIVE TRIBES-BETSCIIUANALAND. 417

the Free State. England is asked either to govern the Basutos
eflfectually herself, or to allow the Free State to govern them. The
lamentable results of the abortive attemps at Imperial rule are as
manifest in Basutoland as in Zululand : it is no government at all,
but rather the perpetuation of disorder : it is absolutely no profit
or advantage to the Home Government, but generates quarrels not
only between the white man and the black, but also between the
Dutch and English races in South Africa.

II. Neither is the history of what has occurred in Betschuana-
land any more satisfactory. This is a great tract of fairly fertile
country, stretching 600 miles north and south, by 100 miles in
width, on the west of the Transvaal, and north of Griqualand West
and of the Orange Free State, at an average height of 5,000 feet
above sea-level. Throughout the whole of this enormous territory
there are no more than 200,000 Betschuanas, who occupy for
pastoral purposes a mere fractional part of the land that lies
between the Kalahari desert and the Transvaal.

The Betschuanas, like all the Kaffir race, are divided into tribes,
and these again into clans, each headed by rival chiefs ; and their
jealousies and tribal and clan animosities are sure to aflFord an
opening for the well-intentioned or ill-intentioned intrigue of white
neighbours or settlers. The tribal government of all natives upon
the borders of settled districts becomes weak from its contact with a
higher civilisation.^ Missionaries, travelling traders, and land specu-
lators, cannot hold themselves entirely aloof, do what they will,
from the strife and disturbance occasioned by these rivalries; cattle
lifting, the favourite pursuit of the Kaffirs, begins, and the colonists
suflfer and are forced to take sides. Betschuana, like other border
lands, soon became a kind of Alsatia for all the lawless adventurers
and fugitives from justice, the waifs and strays from the adjoining
provinces, whether British or Dutch. In 1878 Moshette was rival
for the paramount chieftainship of the Baralongs with Montsioa.

* In South Africa, and outside the British frontiers, there have been established
since 1830 no hss than 200 Mission stations, containing 812 European teachers of
various Christian bodies — the Dutch Beformed Church, the London Missionary
Society, the Roman Catliolics, Anglicans, and Danes. Each of these teachers has
some knowledge of the native languages, and is in constant intercourse with natives
of all classes, with whom, inevitably, he is drawn into more or less fast friendship
or the reverse. The traders travel through the country, one European and about
sixty armed natives with each ox waggon. One Swedish house in Cape Town employs
sixty such waggons, and tvann over a capital of 200,0002. a year ; but the occupation
of travelling trader is followed by hundreds, even thousands of others, who have
only capital enough to buy a waggon and a span of twelve or fifteen oxen, and start
from one of the polls of Cape Colony with a cargo of goods.

VOL. I. E E

418 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

This latter had formerly admitted the other s precedence by birth
for the headship, but asserted that he had been elected in 1870 by
the other chiefs. At the end of 1881 Moshette secured the services
of eighty white men to support his rights, and by the end of 1882
had with him some hundreds ; many of these adventurers came
from the unsettled parts of the Transvaal, though they were not
all Dutch. Of the Baralongs themselves 15,000 followed Moshette
and 10,000 acknowledged Montsioa. To add to the confusion,
Massouw, another clan chief, was at loggerheads with Mankoroane
of the Batlapin tribe. As the latter was an old enemy of Moshette's
since 1858, Massouw naturally espoused the opposite side ; so now
there were Montsioa and Mankoroane on one side, against Moshette
and Massouw on the other. The two first were well known as
shifty and cruel chiefs ; Montsioa had been wont to bum and skin
his enemies ; and of Mankoroane, Colonel Warren had complained
in 1878, " that there is no doubt that, while he has been holding
out one hand to us as an ally, he has also been assisting the enemies
of the British with the other ; *' and as Sir Hercules Robinson after-
wards stated, " he had only himself to thank for the trouble that
befell him from unnecessarily interfering between Moshette and
Montsioa."

Both the Cape Government and the Transvaal protested they
would take neither side. However, spite of all precautions, a handful
of white men out of Griqualand West, under Mr. Christopher
Bethell (who afterwards was one of the founders of the Republic of
Goshen), managed to assist Mankoroane and Montsioa. These two
chiefs apparently began the war that ensued. The mischief grew,
and as the native squabbles on one side had been espoused by a
motley gang out of Griqualand, so the other side was now
assisted by a similar gang out of the Transvaal. By the end
of 1882 Mankoroane and Montsioa's men were overpowered
by Moshette and Massouw and their men ; Mankoroane lost the
greater part of his country, the south part of Betschuanaland,
or Batlapin district — large grants in which were given by his
victorious rival to the white men who had helped him, and hence-
forth called Stellaland ; and from Montsioa, a territory seventy-five
miles long by forty broad (north of Stellaland), was taken by
Moshette from the Baralong territory for another white community,
and called Goshen, on account of its fertility. A period of peace
followed — nearly two years. In Stellaland farms were marked out,
and an administration was formed ; Vrijberg (Free Town) sprang

1881. NATIVE TRIBES— BETSCHUANALAND. 419

up, and things began to settle down. Orderly citizens from Cape
Colony, from the Transvaal, and from the Orange Free State,
occupied the farms, having bought them from the original
speculators. In Goshen, however, the old savage Montsioa still
gave trouble by further acts of aggression, and settlement was
impossible ; thither, too, most of the lawless white men naturally
drifted on; a number of deserters from the British army swelled
the ranks of the freebooters, and these were " the worst of the lot."
In March, 1883, Lord Derby wrote: " Betschuanaland is beyond
our borders ; it is of no interest to us for Imperial purposes, and
politically it is useless to us ; " nevertheless, impelled by generous
motives, he offered Mankoroane and Montsioa " moderate allowances
if, when driven out of the land they had claimed as their own, they
could be located in British territory." The Transvaal, on the other
side, proposed that their rivals, Moshette and Massouw, should be
included, according to the expressed wish of these chiefs, within
the borders of the Transvaal. Up to this time neither the British
Government nor that of the Transvaal had interfered. But on
January 30th, 1884, a British Protectorate was proclaimed over
the whole of Betschuanaland ; and the Reverend Mr. Mackenzie
was appointed Special Commissioner under Sir Hercules Robinson,
on whom was conferred, as High Commissioner, ** civil and criminal
jurisdiction in the parts of South Africa west of the boundary of
the Transvaal, north of the Cape Colony, east of 20° E. longitude,
and south of 22° S. latitude." Arriving at Vrijberg, the capital
of Stellaland, he found the majority of the whites there, headed by
Van Niekerk, desired annexation to Cape Colony, while a min-
ority wished to become a Crown Colony under direct Imperial
rule. Mr. Mackenzie strongly favoured the latter. Party spirit
rose higher and higher. A change of ministry took place at the
Cape. The outgoing ministers had promised a quota towards
the expenses of the Protectorate; their successors declined to
endorse the undertaking, but promised to submit proposals for
annexing Stellaland to Cape Colony next session. In August Mr.
Mackenzie resigned, in deference to the urgently expressed wishes
alike of the Cape Government, of the Transvaal, and of the High
Commissioner, as representing Great Britain. His successor, Mr.
Rhodes (who had been a member of the Cape ministry), only
averted civil war and saved the British Protectorate by conceding,
on September 8th, 1884, self-government to Stellaland under Van
Niekerk, by cancelling most of Mr. Mackenzie's acts, and by fully

E E 2

420 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

recognising all the titles to the land that had been occupied before
the country was taken under the British Protectorate.

Sir Charles Wan-en was appointed Special Commissioner for
Betschuaoaland ; his expedition left England in November, and
arrived at the Cape in December, 1884. The military success
the expedition at first met with was largely due to the loyal co-
operation of Sir John Brand, President of the Orange Free State,
and of President Kriiger of the Transvaal. Both met Sir Charles
Warren ; the latter especially expressed his disapproval of the vio-
lent acts of the Goshen freebooters, and manifested great readiness
to co-operate with the British authorities; many volunteers from
the Transvaal and the Orange Free State joined his field force.
Since then things have not gone on so smoothly as they at first
promised to do. In Stellaland — where the administration of Van
Niekerk had been recognised by Mr. Mackenzie and Mr. Rhodes, and
ratified by Sir H. Robinson, by Lord Derby, and by Sir C. Warren
on his first arrival at Cape Tox^n — many causes of dissension have
arisen. Van N iekerk was arrested by Sii* C. Warren on a charge
of murder, said to have been committed two years before, and sent
to be tried iu Cape Colony ; the Crown prosecutor declined, however,
to proceed against him. Mr. Rhodes resigned, on account of what
he considered a breach of faith towards the Stellaland administration
by this arrest, and Mr. Mackenzie returned, at the inviUition of Sir
C. Warren, to Betschuanaland, althcrugh the British Government
"deprecated his presence as inexpedient," and Sir H. Robinson
as "mischievous;" another official, who had been dismissed by
the Cape Govemmetit, t^as also invited to go up as bis legal and
financial adviser. In March, 1885, Sir Hercules Robinson "dis-
claims all responsibility fdr what Sir Charies Warren is doing, and
thinks his proceedings are wanting iti integrity, judgment, and
good faith." He has turned the friendship of the Orange Free
State and of the Transvaal into distrust and alarm; and irritated
the whole Dutch population throughout Cape Colony, and the
whole of South Africa into suUenness and suspicion, chiefly because
he has recommended the total Jtbd absolute exclusion of all settlers
of Dutch origin from Betschuanaland for the future.

In April, 1885, Sir C. Warren went north, and on May 8th he
met Khama, the ostensible overlord of the Bamangwato tribes
(although there is another brother who claims the chieftainship
and is supported by a considerable following). Khama renewed
the offer he had made in 1878 of his territories to the British,

1881. NATIVE TRIBES— BETSCHUANALAND. 421

hoping thus to be secured in them against the lawless English and
Dutch, whose neighbourhood he dreads, and also against his here-
ditary enemies, further north, the Matabele Zulus, under their chief
Lobengulason of MoseUkatsi, who has ten soldiers to every one that
Khania can raise. Sir Charles Warren accepted Khama's oflFer.
The chief stipulated that no drink should be introduced into his
country; that no land sales should take place (as Kaffir tribes
cannot alienate tribal land), but that farms should be leased only ;
that his own shooting and hunting rights should be reserved, and
that no travelling traders or huntsmen should come, but only
bond fide English and not Dutch settlers, and that none such
should take the farms unless he, as landlord, approved of them :
"I expect that the English people who come into the country
should fight for it and protect it, having provided themselves with
horses and guns for the purpose," in fact become his military
retainers.

Lord Derby however, on May 28th, declared in a despatch
that " it is absolutely necessary that the heavy expenditure con-
nected with this expedition should be terminated as soon as possible.
Her Majesty's Government have no intention of creating a Crown
Colony in Betschuanaland, and continue to wish that Cape Colony
should assume management of Protectorate without delay."

On August 5th, 1885, Colonel Stanley, who had succeeded Lord
Derby at the Colonial Office, on receiving a deputation, stated that
" however grand and tempting the offer of the chief Khama might
have appeared to be at first sight, it was one which required to be
very carefu!ly weighed before it could be entertained by the
Government, and I have not found, and do not think myself likely
to find, myself in a position to recommend to niy colleagues the
acceptance of that offer. It seems to roe, whatever may have
been the good faith of that offer, it certainly, if we rightly under-
stood it, would have included the offer of districts over which the
authority was certainly not unquestioned, and involved other con-
siderations with regard to which, for my part, I was not prepared
to make any recommendation."

III. The Swazis form the third great native State. They
occupy the country to the east of the Transvaal; their indepen-
dence was guaranteed by the London Convention with the
Transvaal in 1882. In 1883, however, a British emissary was
despatched to their country and reported that the ** Swazis would
be glad to be under the English and pay taxes to them." In May,

422 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1861.

1884, Lord Derby " concurred in the opinion expressed by Sir H.
Robinson in the advantages which might result from the establish-
ment of a British agent on their borders," but beyond tliat nothing
has been done. They have not yet been conquered, disarmed, and
divided one against the other by England, like the Zulus, and it
is quite possible that they may be able to hold their own against
all intruding freebooters ; for they are a more warlike race than
the Betschuanas.

These then are the three main conditions — -4, the two British
Colonies ; B, the two Dutch Republics ; and G, the Native races, —
with which we have to deal in South Africa. Each of the three, the
Dutch, the English, and the coloured races, regard themselves, and
are regarded by others in England, as possessing paramount claims
for consideration ; and according as the advocates of one or the
other have from time to time had the ear of the British public, so
from time to time a policy sometimes in favour of one, sometimes
in favour of the other, has been adopted. Such a course has
intensified the confusion, has stirred every bitterness, and been
productive of endless expense both in blood and money. Having,
however, grasped the fact that there are three constituent elements
of the question, it will then be necessary to consider what couree
is British policy prepared consistently to take in the future with
reference to each. As regards the two first (A and B) there cannot
be much doubt about the answer : having given them independent
government, if they wish to separate from the Empire and set up
for themselves, we shall part as friends. If they deliberately elect
on the other hand to remain, as loyal Africanders, part and parcel
of the British Empire, then we will in our turn stand by them to
the end; but we must have a thorough understanding in the
future with reference to the cost and organisation of this South
African portion of the Empire. If they left us, we should at once
be freed from all attempt to deal with G. But if the British
flag is to remain in South Africa, then the main object to be kept
in view would seem to be ; first, to bring about between the four
variously-governed European communities at the Cape something
approaching to uniformity of system and action upon matters of
common concern ; secondly, to allay and eventually extinguish race
animosities between the two European sections ; and thirdly, to
provide for the protection of the natives and their gradual eleva-
tion in the scale of civilisation, while arranging for that expansif n

1881. EITHER ONE OF TWO POLICIES. 423

of the white race which is inevitable, and which, if properly regu-
lated, will prove of great advantage to all concerned. All three
problems must be solved too in such a way as not to be contradictory
the one to the other, and the last of them embraces the whole ques-
tion of frontier policy, and is the one which has constituted for so
long a time the main difficulty in the administration of South
Africa by both the Dutch and English races. There ai-e really
only two courses of consistent policy, one or other of which must
be adopted and persistently followed. Either, (1) leave the native
question to be dealt with wholly and solely by the white inhabitants
of South Africa themselves, without any interference from home.
Then that which is now a cause of dissension between the two
Dutch Republics and the two English colonies would become a
bond of union ; the Dutch and English would live together in
peace, and be thoroughly loyal to England. Or, (2) make all the
extra- colonial territories — Zululand, Betschuanaland, Pondoland,
Basutoland, and the Transkeian Kaffirs — one large Crown Colony
administered on one uniform, consistent, intelligent system ; make
the Protectorate over these races a reality, not merely a name as
it is now, by placing them thus under one Viceroy responsible
to the Crown alone, and with a sufficient force at his command to
nip in the bud any intertribal outbreak, cattle stealing, or dis-
turbance ; and thus leave the four European communities with
free responsible institutions to manage their own local affairs
within their own borders, undistracted by the native frontier
question at all. These are the only two practical solutions possible ;
either give up the pretence of control, or else make it really effective.
If the first of these alternations be rejected, nothing remains but
the second : no third exists. As the question which shall be
adopted is still undecided, it will be most convenient merely to
give a summary of the arguments that have been advanced by the
advocates of each.

1. The policy adopted deliberately by Great Britain for years past
towards all her colonies in every part of the world, and by both
political parties, has been to withdraw the Imperial troops from the
colonies and leave them to deal with their own internal defence.
And in South Africa before the Basuto war broke out, we had
" arrived at the point (to quote Lord Kimberley s words, Nov. 16,
1880) at which we have withdrawn from the colony all our troops
except the garrison of Cape Town, and it is understood to be there
for Imperial purposes only ; and if we were now to retrace our steps.

424 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

it would involve a complete reversal of what we have been doing
for the last fifteen years. In New Zealand we took the course of
withdrawing the troops, and leaving the Colonists alone with the
natives. Nothing could be more unsuccessful than our treatment
of native questions in New Zealand, and nothing could be more
successful than the subsecjuent treatment of those questions by the
Colonists. In the presence of a great responsibility and danger,
they have shown moderation and wisdom, which I think we did
not display while we had control of native atfair.s in New Zealand."
What has happened there, would probably happen here ; within
certain areas the white man would remain supreme, and in others
the native communities would remain impervious to attack. Great
Britain would be better off without South Africa ; and South Africa
would be better off without Great Britain. In 1867, Sir M. H.
Beach, speaking for the Conservative Government, maintained, in
the House of Commons, that " we had no Imperial interest in South
Africa except the holding of Cape Town, and that one battalion
alono ought to be maintained in South Africa at the expense of the
Home Government." The strategic value of the Cape (the only
excuse we ever had for going to South Africa, and the only reason
seriously put forward for our remaining there) is now, according to
the opinion of many experts, exceedingly doubtful. Many ships
steam from London to Melbourne or Calcutta without taking in
coal or requiring a port of call at all ; and in future wars it is
probable that ironclads will be accompanied by steam colliers to
supply them at sea, and the use of such spots as the Cape, even if
fortified, will be 7iiL Few even of the hardiest Imperialists will
contend that South Africa can or will in any way recompense us for
the sacrifices of men and money which we have already been called
upon to make in its behalf. What the Natives ask is to be let
alone; what the majority of the Colonists ask is to be let alone, and
that the development ot South Africa should be regulated by the
free play of natural forces.

2. On the other side it is urged : ** If the Imperial Government
does come away, it would soon have to go back again, for the white
Colonists in South Africa are not strong enough to keep the natives
under, and England could not resist the cry for help when the whites
were hard pressed. And besides, Great Britain has a moral
responsibility as regai'ds the natives, and cannot decline to uphold
their rights ; and it is most important that the trade route and
missionary road into the centre of Africa should remain in the

1881. STAY AND REALLY RULE ; 425

possession of the Queen's Government, and not of an alien power
that might be hostile to us. An Imperial Protectorate of all the
tribes and races, under an impartial and sagacious ruler, with a
little management would hold the balance even between the white
and black races, and would be able to unite all the States of South
Africa in a loose confederation under the protection of the British
Crown. Such a Viceroy, or High Commissioner, should not be
identified with any Colony or State ; he should no more be Governor
of one of the English Colonies than President of one of the Dutch
Republics for the time being. He might be assisted with a Council,
two members of which should be nominat,ed by the Governor and
Ministry of Cape Colony, one nominated by the President and
Council of the Orange Free State, one similarly from the Transvaal,
and one from Natal : and thus he would have the sense of power
that would arise from his being assured of being backed up
by each of these Governments. The contingent of police at his
disposal to keep order and peace in the Imperial Protectorate
should be recruited alike in the Dutch Republics and in the English
Colonies, for the Dutch are no more in favour of filibustering than
the English, and a firm and just government of the native races
would be received by the Dutch in the Cape Colony, and in Natal,
quite as favourably as by the English. The extreme cost to the
Home Government for the establishment of such Protectorate could
not exceed 300,000/. a year, the sum that Cape Colony and Natal
now cost the Imperial exchequer annually. Such expenpe would
bo nothing in comparison to the cost of such an expedition as Sir
Charles Warren s to Betschuanaland, or even the maintenance of the
British garrison in the Zulu Reserve. The native tribal government
of the Protected States would be interfered with as little as possible ;
except in places where large numbers of white men have established
themselves (as in Stellaland and the New Republic), there would
be none of the machinery of European administration ; the salary
of such Viceroy, his subordinate magistrates, and his police force
could well be provided from local sources, for the wealth and
value of these lands are well known and would compensate England
for all expenditure ; and ag the regions were steadily developed it
would soon be reimbursed. In the Crown Colony of Natal half a
million of blacks are governed by Imperial officers with perfect
success ; and a similar result might be anticipated if all the natives in
South Africa, south of tlie Vaal River, were similarly directed,
protected and governed by the Crown/'

420 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881

To which the reply is made : " If this result will so readily and
easily follow, there is nothing to prevent the Colonists in South
Africa from securing it for themselves by combination without
Imperial intervention. An Imperial Protectorate would be alto-
gether wrong in principle. If the Colonists were relieved of all
responsibility, through the frontier being taken charge of by the
Imperial troops and the Imperial Government, we should find the
chances of native wars would not be diminished but would probably
be increased ; whereas if the Colonists found they had to pay the
expense of serious operations, they would speedily discover a
method of arranging matters with the natives. As it is now,
many of the Colonists are enriched by each Imperial war, through
the contracts, carrying trade, and increase in the imports thereby
occasioned. Not only are they freed from all cost of paying for such
wars, but they pay themselves out of them. * To open up and
defend a trade route, and to protect the rights of the natives,'
are formulas to conjure with at public meetings, and to raise
public sentiment, in England ; but when calmly examined they are
found to be such as afford no firm basis for practical politicians to
act upon. The whole interior of South Africa has been a scene of
blood and fire and vapour of smoke ; entire villages have been
destroyed, miserable men, women, and children have been
slaughtered, in the name of philanthropy and trade. The King
of Dahomey has slain his thousands to the manes of his ancestors,
but England hail literally slain her ten thousands to this iffnis
fatuus of civilisation; so that many sincere advocates of the
natives urge that it were wiser, and more conducive to their
truest interests, to leave them alone with the Colonists than
patronise and protect them from home. In all such protections
of weaker races by Great Britain, the fable of the dwarf and the
giant holds good ; and the dwarf always suffers. We have enough
black men on our hands already, without taking over all South
Africans. These spasmodic and passionate sentiments of love for
the aborigines are always succeeded by cold fits: reaction surely
comes, and when reasons of economy have caused the protective
forces to be reduced and finally removed, the natives find to their
cost that their last state is worse than their first. Moreover,
when the question is stirred of * keeping promises ' to them, it
may be asked * which ? ' For so many have been made, contradictory
to each other, that to keep one set necessitates the breaking of
another. Far better make no promises at all, and ' let the dead

1881. OR COME AWAY ALTOGETHER. 427

past bury its dead.' Does it not stand to reason that the local
governments at the Cape would manage soberly and steadily all
those native questions, which concern them far more intimately
than they do us, far better than England could pretend to do,
where Ministries are bound always to consider party exigencies more
than the real question in hand ? We at home are also often with-
out adequate information and knowledge, and are constantly, as a
consequence, led into errors which inflict on the natives far
greater evils than if matters were left to the control of the local
authorities. As to trade routes, they will take care of themselves.
If there is a demand for EngUsh goods in the interior, the traders
at the Cape will purchase them fast enough, and make capital by
transmitting them to the natives in the interior. Even the great
bulk of the German trade with the interior is in English goods.
It can be no duty of the Imperial Government to keep open trade
routes for * gas-pipes,' brandy-kegs, and such other wares as have
paid twenty to forty per cent., and a good deal more in some cases,
to swell the Cape revenues. Neither the British manufacturer
nor the British taxpayer would benefit by the larger outlay
required for the protection of such route, stretching away 1,100
miles into the interior. Let those who use it and make gains
by it pay for the cost of keeping it open. We should find the
burden far too severe for any advantages Great Britain and
Ireland would obtain in return for such support to traders,
natives, and missionaries. And as to supporting the latter by
arms, the world has seen enough of turmoil and bloodshed in
the name of religion, without our attempting anew to force
religion upon a savage people. It is naught to say that we
should do all this cheaply. For we should unquestionably
have to spend a large sum for the purpose of maintaining a body
of Imperial troops, call them contingent or what you please, in the
country. If we were to undertake the Herculean task of maintain-
ing order among aU the contending chiefs in South Africa, we
should be undertaking a task that would demand all the resources
of the British Empire ; and far from any advantage accruing from
such accentuation of British supremacy in South Africa, two fatal
results would probably arise. All the natives would be welded
together by a common dread of the intentions of the white man ;
tribes which are now divided would be united in the common bond
of resentment. When Sir Bartle Frere for one moment tried to
carry out such unity of po'icy he failed, and we were involved in

428 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

wars all round ; and since his time English prestige has enormously
sutfered in the eyes of all the natives in South Africa, and a
peaceful solution of our Imperial diflferences with them would,
therefore, be more remote now than ever. The other result
that would be almost sure to ensue is, that if not content with
possessing the titular headship of Cape Colony and Natal, England
were to claim to be the Supreme Power over the whole of South
Africa, she would certainly drive the South African Republic and
the Orange Free State into a protective alliance with Holland or
Germany to accentuate their national position in turn. The supposed
Viceroy would either have to override his council, or they would
hopelessly squabble among themselves. The jealousy against
Imperial interference is great in Cape Colony now, and in the
Dutch Republics ; and such jealousy would come to a head and be
intensified by such ostentatious intrusion of a paramount power.

" Undoubtedly the only alternative to annexation is to give up
all interference, and finally to withdraw. There are two policies
open to England in South Africa, one is the policy of prudence,
and the other is that of extension. And the force of circumstances
will sooner or later compel this country to abandon the policy of
extending its responsibility in the government of South Africa.
It is impossible to draw a line beyond which the force of cir-
cumstances will not compel us to go : at one time it will be the Vaal
River, another time the 22nd parallel, at another time the Zambesi,
and at another the Mountains of the Moon. Wherever the line
was drawn there would exist on the other side of it the same ele-
ments of disorder, and a further advance would be necessary ; and
the prospect of a continuous advance is one of the greatest arguments
against any advance at all. Neither philanthropic indignation nor
patriotic bluster is the least use in this case. To talk of such refusal
to undertake the Protectorate as a confession of humiliation, a
loss to the Empire, and a sign of the decadence of Great Britain
is the last resource when all argument is exhausted. But
humiliation will only come if we hold on to the untenable,
illogical, and utterly wasteful position we now occupy ; the ' loss
to the Empire ' is this running sore in South Africa, which requires
us periodically to squander millions in spasmodic efforts to staunch
the wounds which our presence, if it does not create, at least
aggravates.

" The total area of the temperate region in South Africa is one
million square miles, that is one-third the size of Europe and six

1881. AT LAST WE LEAVE THE CAPE. 429

times the size of France ; such a country, without doubt, must have
a magnificent future in store. But England's duty is to let it
alone, as it wants to be let alone, for meddling here has produced
nothing but muddling. The Colony is no use to us for emigration,
or for any other purpose, as it is ; it may become in the hands of
those who originally colonised it, and who have become passionately
attached to its soil, the threshold of another America, destined to
be founded in central Africa. The British race has the whole of
the Continents of America and of Australia for its overplus of
population, and can well afford to stand on one side and let
another branch of the Teutonic stock have this."

Such are the arguments that have been put forward by
responsible statesmen on either side, and according to the bias of
our natural temperament shall we individually be inclined to accept
one or the other. The decision as to which will ultimately prevail
depends upon which temperaments are in a majority in the
British electorate ; let us count heads and have done with it. But
the most thorough and business-like way of concluding the matter
before determining either to abandon South Africa once for all,
or to set up one Imperial Protectorate over the whole of the extra-
colonial native tribes, would be to appoint a Royal Commission
instructed to invite and examine the opinions of experienced Cape
statesmen, Dutch and English, of Sir John Brand and President
Kriiger, as well as those of present and past High Commissioners ;
to inquii-e into the question in all its bearings ; to judge of it, not
only in the light of local experience, but also of successful adminis-
tration of coloured races in India, Ceylon, Singapore, Fiji, New
Zealand and the West Indies ; and to report as to the necessary
administrative and fiscal details of such proposed Protectorate.
Then, having been thus put fully in possession of all the facts of
the case, let the British public choose one or other of these schemes
and abide by it.] *

April 9th, — Squadron preparing for sea, after having been in
harbour since February 16th. We weighed the port anchor at
10.30 A.M., hoisted the boats in at 11 A.M. After dinner shortened
in. Wrote last letters for England : saw Mr. Southey, who had
kindly come on board to say good-bye, and then at 6 P.M. (the same
hour as we anchored here) weighed from Simon's Bay, having
been at the Cape for over seven anxious weeks. A mail from

^ For after- tboughts on this subject, see vol. IL pp. 303-9.

430

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1881.

Erigland was due to arrive in a few hours but we did not wait for
it: it will follow us in one of the Orient Line and arrive at Melbourne
long before we do. There was the slightest breeze from the south-
east and it was a lovely night ; the Roman Rock, Elsey Hill and
the Cape Light, were the last we saw of this at present ill-starred
land as they faded away in the distance, and the squadron steamed
at a speed of five knots out of Simon's Bay. Good-bye to South
Africa,

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE TO AUSTRALIA.

April 10th, Palm Sunday — It was a lovely night, with only a
slight swell outside, which this morning has become a heavy
one off the Agulhas bank. We steam on towards the south,
rolling S"*; hardly any wind. The usual church service on the
main deck. The sun went down over the dark blue water amid a
profusion of light whirling wisps of cloud. It is a fine night again,
but the moon has a halo round it. Admira 1 has signalled *' rendezvous
ten miles south of Cape Otway," nearly 6,000 miles away, so if any
of us get separated on the way, we shall not meet again for a
considerable time. It will probably take us forty-two or more
days to reach Melbourne from here. The programme of the
cruise as now settled is tlmt we should arrive there May 20th,
leave 28th; arrive Sydney 31st, leave Sydney June 14th; arrive
Wellington (New Zealand) June 27th, arrive Christchurch 28th,
leave July 4th ; arrive Fiji 18th, leave 25th, and arrive Yokohama
September 8th, thence as on former programme (p. 215).

April Wth. — In the forenoon, ships spread for target-practice,
and exercised at general quarters, firing shot and shell. This
over, the mids on the poop fired at the target with rifles,
popping away some of them as many as thirty-two rounds, until
they riddled the rum-cask, and sank it. The target employed at
sea for practising, consists of such a cask, through which a stout
ash-pole has been fixed before it is dropped overboard ; a piece of

1881.

SOUTH AFRICA TO AUSTRALIA.

431

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE TO AUSTRALIA.

Date.

Fbom Previous Nook.

At Nook.

Temperature.

Course.

Distance.

Wind.

Lat.

Long.

Sea.

Air.

Sail.

Steam.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon.

6 p.m.

April

lOS.

S. 28 E.

S.R 2-3 3^-35

19-21

S. 27 E.

...

119

S.E.2-3,N.RtoR21 3721

20-28

S. 44 K

Calms &N.W. 5-6

38-54

22-23

N. 87 K

153

N.W. 7-6, N.R 2-3

38-46

25-39

S. 81 E.

N.E. 2

38-51

26-47

S. 68 E.

N.R 3-4

39-48

29-42

N. 79E.

121

...

N.E. 2-3, N. to
N.W. 3-6, N.R 4-6

39-24

32-16

17S.

N. 89 R

215

...

N.W. 7-8-5

39-23

86-54

N. 84 E

102

N.W.W. &R2-3

39-12

39-4

S. 59 E.

...

N.E. to R 3-5

39-47

40-21

S. 80 E.

...

R to N.N.E 3-5

Nil

41-53

N. 86 E.

170

...

N.N.R 6 7,N.W.
6-7, S.W. 6-8

39-48

45-36

N. 83 R

106

...

S.W. toW. 7-4,
N.W. to N.R 3-4

39-35

47-51

N. 89R

174

...

N.E by N. 6-7,
W.N.W. 8'6

39-32

51-36

24S.

N. 81 E.

179

• ••

N.W. to S.W. 4-6

39.6

55-24

S. 88 E.

162

...

S.W. 6-2, W. by N. 5

39-12

68-51

N. 89 E.

165

...

W.S.W. 4-7-4

39-10

62-24

East

126

...

S.W. byS. 4-2

39-9

Nil

S. 88R

169

...

W.byN.5,N.W.6-7
N.W. 6-9, S.W. 7-9

39-11

68-44

N. 89R

162

...

39-8

72-13

N. 89 R

181

...

S.W. 6-8, W. 4

39-5

76-6

May

IS.

N. 88R

171

N.W. 3-7

39-0

79-46

'58

N. 89 E.

141

...

N.W. 2-3, S.W. 3-6

38-58

82-47

N. 79 E.

143

...

S.W. 5-6, S R 5-6

38-33

85-47

N. 82 E.

108

...

S.R to S.W. 5-6,
S. to S.W. 3-4

S. 79 R

...

S.W. 8-4, W. to
W. by N. 3-6

38-37

90-2

S. 76-30 R

164

...

W.N.W. 4-6, W.
to W.iS. 5-6

39 16

93-27

S 76 R

193

••■

S.W. 6-6, W. by N. 6

40-0

97-30

8S.

N. 86 E.

186

W. byN. 5-8

39-48

101-30

N. 87 R

181

...

W. byN. 7-8,
W.S.W.6-8,S.W.l-2

39-42

S. 87 R

115

...

S.W. to N. by W.
1-5, W. byS. 4-5

39-47

107-55

3. 87 E.

184

...

S.W. 6-6, N.W. 3-7

...

111-55

S. 86 E.

220

N.W. 7-9, S.W. 7-9

4013

116-41

S. 74 E.

103

W. by S. to S.W.
7-9-10.S.W.byW.7-9

40-48

119-23

N. 6 W.

...

148

W. to N.W. 6-9,
W. by N. 8-4

38-21

119-1

15S.
Totii

distance ...

450r
... 55

195
13

J22mi

N.W. 4 -8 -6
les.

432 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

coloured bunliDg, about three feet square, nailed to the pole, serves
as the mark, as it floats at so many hundred yards distance from the
ship. A couple of round shot are slung under the cask, in order to
keep the flag upright. After dinner at 1.30 P.M., the squadron were
exercising at steam tactics till dusk, at 6 P.M. Steam tactics are to
ships at sea the same as manoeuvring and handling bodies of men
are to officers on shore : only instead of being executed by word of
command, the ordera for each formation are of course communicated
by signal from the Admiral ; the ships in succession, or together,
turning so many points to port or so many to starboai'd as the case
may be, to take up their new formation. There were many whales
spouting and frolicking round ; one came flopping up so suddenly
and close to the ship that for a moment we thought it was a man
overboard. After sunset there were signs of wind, so at 11.30
that night made plain sail, and just before midnight rove screw
purchase and got up screw. At noon to-day we were distant from
St. Paul's Island 2,686 miles.

April 12th, — We seem already to have picked up the westerlies
and the Admiral has altered course accordingly to south-east ; we are
now on the 40° parallel of latitude ; the wind being from the north-
west is thus right aft, but with stunsails set both sides, the bacchante
is only making 6*8 knots, for we roll a good deal, 24° to starboard,
and 21° to port, and there is a heavy swell. The Bacchante is, in fact,
sailing the worst of the squadron to-day, and her bottom is probably
very foul, judging from the barnacles with which the banjo frame
of the screw was found to be covered when it was hoisted. A
barque coming up astern, overtook us and sailed down between the
lines. There were frequent rain-squalls during the day.

Ajyril ISth. — The sea and swell have much gone down during
the night ; at 8 A.M. we are only going four knots ; a bright sunny
morning, and the wind is still falling. The signal has been made
** to chase " and away goes the humistant ahead, and the other
four ships keep nearly abeam of each other. The Cleopatra and
Carysfort were within a cable's length of us, one on our starboard
quarter and the other on the port, most of the four and twenty
hours. Scarcely a cloud or breath of wind all the afternoon or
night.

April 14tth, — A fine day but a dead calm ; got the screw down at
6.30 A.M. and began steaming at 8 A.M., then spread for target
practice, at which fired electric broadsides. In the afternoon we
are at steam tactics, after which the squadron was organised into

1881. SOUTH AFRICA TO AUSTRALIA. 433

three divisions, and formed columns of divisions in line ahead,
second division to port, third division to starboard, of the flagship.
The effect of this is that the flagship has the Bacchante on her port,
and Tourmaline on her starboard beam, and these three ships sail
along together abreast as the first line ; astern of the Bacchante
is the Cleopatra, and astern of the flagship is the Carysfort, In the
evening there were heavy showers of rain.

April Ihth, Good Friday, — In the middle watch, at 3 A.M.,
made plain sail, and set port stunsails. At 4.15 A.M. cleared
lower deck, and all hands rove screw purchase, and got the
screw up, as a gentle breeze had sprung up from the north-
east. An American barque sailing in the same direction as our-
selves overtook and passed us. Had church on the main deck.
We are gradually getting more south ; to-day we are on the 40th
parallel, but over 5,000 miles from Cape Otway. The wind is very
variable, and is going round from the north-east to the north-west,
and the barometer is falling very fast.

April IQth. — A fine day but nearly calm, with light airs from
the south-west. After breakfast went to the "chief" who had his
hook and line overboard fishing for albatross, of which there were
a great many flying round the ship. We were not long before we
hooked one, and hauled him up on the glacis, and took him under
the poop, where we skinned him : he was a beauty, measuring ten
feet from tip to tip of his wings. Immediately afterwards the wind
sprang up from the north-east, and took us all aback, one ship after
the other, and during the afternoon it was very squally, with much
rain : but the wind went round to the north-west, and freshening
up took us along over nine knots. This night we rolled more
than we have ever done since we have been iu commission. All
sorts of things were carried away in the cabin, amongst others a
stanchion of one of the cots, which sent George rolling on the
deck amid other things that had fetched away and were scattered
there. " Something has happened *' and a good deal of laughter
were the first sounds that were heard after the crash. So no great
harm was done.

April I7th, Easter Bay, — A fine morning, the wind still fresh.
The flagship is rolling along under topsails only, and yet drawing
ahead of the squadron (all the other ships have got every stitch they
can set, royals and stunsails), so vastly superior is she in sailing power
to any of us. It must be very trying to the patience of those on

VOL. I. F F

434 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

board the Incomtant to have to go so leisurely and wait about for
the rest. Usual Easter Day ser\'ices and Holy Communion. Towards
afternoon the wind died away, and all the night there was a dead
calm, during which the heavy swell striking under the counter kept
up a succession of loud thumps and shocks, a capital arrangement
for keeping sleepy folk awake over it.

Ajpril l%th. — Soon after midnight a few light airs from the east
sprang up, the ship's head in the meantime having been nearly all
round the compass. After morning divisions, tacked twice with the
watch, and twice again in the afternoon ; the breeze was from the
east, and the flagship for a little change was sailing round the
squadron all the morning. After evening quarters the purser
caught his first albatross, but it was not such a large one as the
" chiefs " last. We are reading Sir Charles Dilke's Greater Britain^
out of the ship's library.

April \9th, — A fine day but not much sun ; a nice little breeze
from the east but rather cold. During the forenoon tacked twice
with the watch. In the afternoon the wind shifted to north-north-
east. The Tourmalins is guide of the fleet to-day, and we are
keeping station on her.

April 20<A. — Raining oflF and on all the morning with a fresh
breeze. Flagship after sailing again round the fleet picked up her
station after dinner. At 3 p.m. we took in two reefs in the topsails
as it was very squally, the wind shifting to north-north-west.
From 6.30 p.m. till 10 p.m. there were heavy downpours of rain,
everything as dark as pitch. At 9 P.M. shook out the reefs, but
took them in again a few minutes afterwards. Later on in the
night the wind went round to the west-south-west and the stars
came out ; the thermometer which was 67° at 6 P.M. went down to
58** at midnight.

April 2\d, — In the middle watch it was very gusty ; at 6.30 A.M.
shook out the second reef, and at 9.30 A.M. the remaining reef.
The morning was simshiny though the wind was bitterly cold. At
noon the thermometer stood at 52°. Towards the evening the
wind fell lighter, and after supper we set the starboard stunsails.
After quarters had a good game of " prisoners' base " and it was a
splendid starlight night. The constellations of the southern hemi-
sphere, with the Southern Cross in the midst, are all, except
Orion, difierent from those we are used to at home, and fill us with
a weird feeling of being in another world, and under other heavens.

1881. SOUTH AFRICA TO AUSTRALIA. 436

'< Oh to be in England
, Now that April's there :
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some mominff, unaware
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough,
In England- now I "

During the whole night what little wind there was was right aft,
and as there was a swell coming up on the quarter as well the
Bacchante, true to her name, rolled a good deal.

April 22nd. — Bright sunny morning. At daylight a sail was
visible in the distance coming up on the port quarter with the
breeze ; she turned out to be a Yankee clipper with twenty-four
sail on her. She overhauled and passed us at 2 P.M. The Bacchante
has gone nine knots several times to-day with the wind 5 to 6 on
the port quarter, which is always her best point, as she then sails
steadily without losing way through rolling.

Ajml 2Srd. — In the middle watch, at 3 AM., the wind shifted
from north-north-east to west-north-west in heavy rain, and fell in
force from 6 and 7 to 2 and 4, and the ship from going nine knots
went only five and a half. After breakfast there was a rainbow
in the west, but there was a steady wind with force of 6 for twenty-
four hours from the west ; sun out, no swell, a blue sea, temperature
about 60°, reminding us of the trades more than anything else.
As the wind worked round to the west-south-west in the afternoon,
though it did not increase in force, yet as it came again on the
quarter, it sent us along eight knots. The sunsets in these windy
and watery latitudes repeat themselves day after day with a constant
and impressive beauty. The whole of the eastern half of the
horizon is usually thrown into an extreme darkness of purple :
the other or western half is more or less covered by a mass of clouds,
that, starting from the horizon, are heaped up by the wind that is
there, in tiers and layers of ever-varying and ominous magnificence,
through which are seen rifts of gold, green and blue glory,

April 24fth, Low Sunday. — Lovely day, during the whole of
which we went along over seven knots, with the wind abeam from
the southward and a few rain squalls. It seems curious that this
southerly wind should bring so many clouds and rain.

The next day (St. Mark's) we took up our appointed station, as
we had been sailing at ease since Saturday. Towards the evening
it was puffy, and now and again we went over ten knots. In
the afternoon we had the bar up for gymnastics as usual, and

F p 2

436 CRdlSE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

afterwards in the evening went on reading about Free Trade and
Protection.

April 26^A. — Not so cold as it has been for the last few days.
After the dinner hour we and all the mids went aloft with the
ordinary seamen and boys, and were exercised at shifting mizzen
topsail ; then we all did rifle and cutlass driU.

April 27th. — Grey dull cloudy morning. There are some
whales within 300 yards of the ship. We are rolling with
the swell that is coming up on the starboard quarter very
irregularly ; thick clouds last all day till the evening, but the night
is clear. At 11 p.m. the Southern Cross is directly in the zenith,
with two bright stars pointing to it. There is something in the
currents and temperature that causes the clouds to form during the
day and allows the sky to be clear at night.

April 28th. — In the morning the wind is right aft and we are
all bowling along over eight knots, with very little sun out. At
3 P.M. the wind shifted from the north-west in a sudden and heavy
squall of wind and rain to the south-south-west ; the main royal
was blown into ribbons, the foretop-gallant sail split, the foretop-
mast stunsail split across head, and the foretop-gallant mast sprung
just above the cap. We shifted the foretop-gallant mast, took in
two reefs in the topsails and one in the courses ; it continued to
blow fresh all night.

April 29th. — ^Boiling heavily, which is very trying to the temper ;
cannot read or write, stand or sit comfortably. The only thing to
be done is to get into a hammock, or cot swung from the beams ;
there you remain steady while the ship swings round you. Two
of the ward-room officers when walking on the upper deck, which
was very wet, went over during one of the rolls into the lee scup-
pers together ; one broke his rib, and the other damaged his eye :
it was in the same roll the port cutter touched the water. When
sitting at meals your chair has to be lashed to the leg of the table
and you have to hold the plate in one hand and feed with the
other ; nothing will remain anyhow on the table. In the gun-room
mess we have now only three cups unsmashed. The latter part of
the day we have been going over ten knots. As there is a windy
sunset, and there have been very heavy squalls from the south-west
all day, after evening quarters we reefed topsails. We had some
thin lines of thread flying overboard, in which some Cape pigeons
got their wings entangled ; we caught one of these ; they cannot
rise oflf the deck. We set him free and he fell flop in the

1881. SOUTH AFRICA TO AUSTRALIA. 437

water, then rose and shook himself, fell again, then rose and
flew away.

April 'iOth. — At 6.30 A.M. the flagship hoisted the signal " man
overboard," and hove to and at once lowered a cutter. This was
away from the ship for nearly half-an-hour, but the poor man
was never found. At 7.15 A.M. flagship filled. At 7.30 A.M. we
shook out reefs ; at 5 P.M. bore up to form on the starboard side of
Admiral. At 10.40 p.m. sighted St. PauFs Island bearing north-
east-J-east. Passed it at 11 P.M. seven miles off. Without glasses
it was very indistinct, but Roxby said he could recognise both the
slopes. It was just hereabouts that when H.M.S. Megcera had been
run ashore on the island to prevent her from sinking (she was so
old that her bottom was all in holes), Roxby afterwards came off in a
lifeboat and boarded a Dutch barque bound for Batavia. It was,
too, just such a night as this, and they took him at first for a pirate
and would have nothing to say to him, but afterwards gave him a
passage to Java, whence he telegraphed to England for assistance
to be sent to St. Pauls to fetch the rest of the officers and men,
who were all on short commons, as hungiy as could be. There is
but one little harbour, which is apparently a crater filled with water,
with a broken bar at the entrance. At that time there were a
couple of Frenchmen on the island, who by their own choice
remained there ; they must have been real lovers of solitude, for
no ships ever touch or communicate.

This evening, when the wind came somewhat on our quarter
instead of directly astern, there was a slight but delightful cessation
from the continuous worry of the rolling we have had for the last
few days. It is very pleasant to feel the ship going along steadily ;
just as freedom from pain is not noticed or thought of until
lost, so on board ship you do not value steady sailing till you
have been pitched and tossed about a bit from side to side, and
then you can scarcely realise that you are actually making progress,
the ship seems not to move. When the Bacchante rolled most
heavily the little ships were steadiest, and very often when they
were rolling about we were perfectly steady.

May \si. — Squally in the morning watch; the wind is
nearly right aft, but a little, if anything, on the port quarter.
We have got the topmast stunsail set, and are going about
nine and a half knots. Church on the main deck, and Holy
Communion. In the afternoon wind went down and it rained
hard, but it was a lovely night with a new moon ; had a good

438 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

look at Magellanic clouds. At noon Cape Otway is distant
2,977 miles.

May 2nd. — A fine day but very squally ; close hauled on the star-
board tack, wind from the south, and the sea getting up. Took
up our Btation at 10 A.M. and immediately afterwards signal made
to " chase to windward," which the Bacchante is not much of a
hand at. Resumed our stations at 3 p.m. It had been very cold,
though deliciously clear and sunny all day; now the clouds are
flying overhead from the south pole, borne along by the upper
current of air which is rushing up across the lower stratum of air
of the westerlies, to form the " trades."

And so the days pass with not much variety ; morning school goes
on like clockwork, whether the weather be windy or rainy, calm or
rough : and long ago one has learnt to adapt one's self to this. In
the afternoon after French study we went on reading about the
exploration of Australia and its various colonies ; though at present
we don't expect to see more than two of them, Victoria and New
South Wales. In the evening, when we are not on watch, we get
many opportunities on a long sea cruise for reading.

May 3rd. — Still close hauled. The air feels very cold as it comes
straight up from the south pole; thermometer 50°. The In-
constant is sailing round the various ships all the morning, and
in the afternoon we are trying experiments in shifting weights
fore and aft. Reckoning fifteen men to go to a ton, the ship's
company of 450 makes a difference of about thirty tons ; first of all
they were trotted on to the forecastle, and then trotted aft on the
poop, to see what difference it would make in her trim : she carries
more weather helm with the weight forward ; a result pretty much
what we were taught to expect when boat-sailing in the Britannia.
May Sth. — The wind being right aft we are rolling a good
deal, but have service as usual on the main deck, though it was
rather awkward, and some of the chairs and stools fetched away.
After a short sermon we had a collection for the Seamen and Marines'
Orphan Home at Portsmouth ; the petty officers went round and
collected the money as we stood ; it was the largest offertory made
by any ship in the fleet and came to £18 195. 6d,

May 11th, — Fresh breeze from the north-west to south-west. At
noon to-day we have made the best run hitherto (220 miles in
twenty-four hours) with double-reefed topsails, foresail, and single
reefed mainsail, the deck very dry, though a sea or two looked in over
the gangway now and then. Currey passed provisionally for acting

1881. SOUTH AFRICA TO AUSTRALIA. 439

sub-lieutenant to-day ; it is his nineteenth birthday. At 4 p. M.
Admiral made signal, " take up appointed station, ships in column
to keep open order," and this was repeated to the Bacchante at
9 P.M. The signal was also made that ** probably an opportunity
of sending mails to England by the Cleopaira would occur
when weather moderated." We suppose, therefore, that the
Admiral intends to send her into Albany with them.

May \2th, — Blowing very hard all night ; at 5.15 A.M. a sea
struck and filled the port cutter in a heavy roll, and she was washed
away. Force of the wind 10, and stronger in the squalls; heavy
seas running, and as one or two waves broke over the nettings, there
was nearly a foot or more of water sometimes on the deck. About
noon, after they had been topping up the starboard cutter, a very
heavy roll carried away both davits, which snapped about four
feet from the foot and caused her to fall in against the weather-
mizzen rigging, where she was lashed for the present.

At dawn the flagship was three miles ahead of the other ships
of the squadron, and was gradually increasing her distance, although
her treble-reefed topsails were on the cap, and she was thus
carrying the very minimum of sail possible. We were under double-
reefed fore and main topsails, foresail and reefed mainsail. This
was all the sail we could carry. The Carysfort at one time set her
main topgallant sail but furled it after a few minutes. We split
one mainsail and shifted it. At 9 A.M. the "general recall"
was hoisted, but it was impossible to overtake the flagship, and at
3.30 P.M. we lost sight of her altogether.

The Tourmaline was sailing abeam of us all day, and at 3.50
P.M. asked, " Have you steam up ? " answer, " No." The Cleo-
patra and the Carysfort have drawn somewhat ahead, though
they also have kept pretty close to us up to now. At 9 p.m. we
set the mainsail reefed, in addition to the double reefed fore and
main topsails, close reefed mizzen topsail, and reefed foresail. At
10.30 P.M. the fore topmast staysail split, and ten minutes after-
wards the ship broached to. Hauled up the lee clew of the main-
sail and braced forward the head yards, then furled the mainsail as
soon as possible, close reefed the fore and main topsails, furled the
mizzen topsail, hauled out the head of the fore trysail.

It was now one of the most magnificent sights we ever gazed
on, though we never wish to be in similar circumstances or to see
quite the like again. The moon above was breaking in full glory
every few minutes through the densest and blackest storm-clouds.

440

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1881.

which were here and there riven by the blast ; the sea beneath
was literally one mass of white foam boiling and hissing beneath
the gale. For a few seconds, when the BaccJumte first broached to,
it was doubtful what would happen, but no one had time to think
of the peril we were in, for at once the old ship came to the
wind and lay-to of her own accord. Having gone into the cabin
under the poop just before she broached to, experienced a curious
sensation of grinding beneath the screw-well and counter and by the
rudder chains. It might be compared to the somewhat similar
sensation felt when a boat's bottom touches rock or sand and grinds
over them, and bumps for a few seconds. We knew, of course, it

H.M.S. •• BACX:HANTE " IN A GALE.

could not be thus with us, but suspected it was caused by the wrench
the rudder then suffered. Owing to the strain there had been on
the upper deck wheel (which had during the day several times
nearly taken charge, in spite of the dozen men that manned it),
the main deck steering gear had also been connected that evening,
and was being used at the time of the accident, in addition to the
upper deck gear. As the ship refused to pay off, there was nothing
for it but to let her remain, as she was, lying-to. It was then con-
jectured that something had happened to the rudder, as with the
helm put hard a starboard no appreci able difference was observed. (It
was not, however, till the next morning that we realised our position
of being practically rudderless on the open sea, all the other ships

1881. SOUTH AFRICA TO AUSTRALIA. 441

of the squadron haviDggone right away out of sight since yesterday
evening.) The order to get up steam was given soon after 11 p.m.,
and three hours afterwards steam was ready ; but the screw could
not be lowered or connected till the morning of May 13th, owing
to the ship knocking about so much. At 5 A.M., when the screw
was worked twenty to twenty-five revolutions, the ship would not
go oflF the wind or answer her helm. Then we began to suspect
what had taken place. There was nothing to be done but still to
continue to lie-to under close-reefed fore and main topsails, fore-
sail and fore staysail, her head being south-east and by south.
She lay-to very well. The gale continued, and there was of course
still a very heavy sea, but she proved herself a good sea boat, and
shipped, comparatively, but little water. The lower deck was, how-
ever, all afloat through the sea washing up through the scuppers,
and they had one or two heavy sprays down the hatches into the
ward-room, but nothing more to speak of. Few ships would have
ridden out the gale so easily and well as did the Bacchante, lying-to
quite naturally. At 7 A.M., as the current was drifting us helplessly
further south and further away from Australia, we furled sails and
again tried to get her off the wind, but with no effect whatever.
By this time, it being daylight, it was discovered, by looking over the
stem, as the ship pitched, that the rudder was amidships, whilst the
tiller in the captain's cabin was hard a starboard. This showed us
that the rudder head had been twisted about 22°, which of course
accounted for her not paying off. But by altering the wheel chains
of the tiller in the captain's cabin to suit twist in rudder, it was
hoped that we should manage to get a small helm sufficient to turn
her round and keep her on a course. Accordingly, after the dinner-
hour, another effort was made and the fifth boiler was connected ;
then at 2 p.m. set the fore trysail and increased steam power to forty
revolutions, and put the helm over as far as it would go under this
new process, which was not more than 8**. The greatest amount
of helm that could be got when all right was only 32^ She was
" wore," but took half an hour to turn eight points off the wind.
The sun was shining brightly, and the sea still showed more foam
than blue, and was very high, coming over in heavy sprays all along
the nettings. She was anxiously watched, and for a minute seemed
to be paying off, though very loath to leave her old position, and
again went back to it, then rose slowly and gracefully to the
next surge of the sea, paying off this time a little more than before ;
and so again and again the same was repeated rhythmically, and

442 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

almost as if the ship were a sentient being, and was doing all this
in a dignified manner, without hurry and precipitation, amid the
whistling of the wind in the blocks and rigging, and the continuous
swish and moaning onset of the waves. We made a large semi-
circle thus, and at 4 P.M. her head was round, though still up in the
wind on the other tack, but now pointing north for Australia
instead of drifting south to the pole.

After evening quarters, at which every one seemed as happy as
could be, we pointed yards to the wind and steamed ahead, making
up for the nearest port, which was King George's Sound, 380 miles
distant, trusting to the wind to keep her steady on her course, and
giving her as few spokes of the helm as possible. That night the
captain, commander, and navigating Ueutenant, had the first sleep
they have had for three nights and days. The next morning the
wind had somewhat fallen, though it was still blowing 8; the
sea too was going down as well, though occasionally Ve shipped
some over the weather netting. We are getting out of the roaring
forties, and are gradually drawing to the north of the gale as we
near the land. It is a curious coincidence that the worst cyclone
the Galatea ever got into was also met in crossing from the Cape
to Australia. This befell her on October 12th, 1867, to the west-
ward of St. Paul's.

May lUh. — The hands are employed in rigging spars out of the
ports under the poop for steering by in case the rudder further fails
us. We used the spare jibboom (e) and topsail yard (d), rigging the
latter first out of the starboard quarter-port under the poop and over
the glacis, and the former from the port quarter-port ; two seven-inch
hawsers, (b b,) were rove through leading blocks at the end of these ;
and one end of each was brought to the after capstan on the quarter-
deck, and the other secured to the after-end of the two spars, (a a,)
which, lashed together, were to be towed astern by another seven-
inch hawser (c c) secured to their foremost-ends, and coming from
each quarter. The topsail yard and jibboom were supported by up
and down tackles to the mizzen-masthead pendants, with sail tackles
for foremost guys. But we did not get these towing spars over-
board to-day ; they are ready only in case our rudder does not last
out till we arrive in harbour. We don't know yet how much damage
is done to the rudder, but we know it is twisted round about 22°,
and that, if it will only remain like that, we can manage, with
our present re-arrangement of the chains, to keep her on her
course. In the evening set fore- and aft-sails, and increased

1881.

SOUTH AFRICA TO AUSTRALIA.

443

the number of revolutions, so that by Sunday morning (the
15th) we are going over nine knots. It is raining hard but
much warmer than it has been lately, thermometer 63"*, whereas
for the last few days it has been 47°. The wind is still falling,
though the swell is heavy. At 9 A.M. sighted Mount Gardner, a
peak in Western Australia, and afterwards Bald Head, at the entrance
of King George's Sound, and then Breaksea Island. Had a short
service on the main deck at 10.30 A.M., the men in their damp working
dress. At 1 p.m. we passed under the west side of Breaksea Island,
with a lighthouse on top of its red rocky, precipitous sides, weather-
worn from the westerlies that have beaten on them for ages. The

EXTEMPOBISXD 8TCKRIKG GEAR.

only way of landing is by means of a rope ladder on the east or lee side.
Bald Head, on our port hand, seems covered with scrub, with here
and there great patches of sand. After passing these two heads, the
beautiful sound opens out beyond. We steamed right on and up to
the entrance of Princess Royal Harbour, away inside which we can
see the houses of Albany in the distance. Here we anchored at
3 P.M. for the night. Before doing so, however, we tried our
extemporised steering gear in the smooth water of the sound, and
found that the spars towed were not nearly large enough to make
any appreciable effect, as they had no hold in the water, neither
were the two outrigger spars of sufficient height above the water to

444 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

prevent their dipping, if the ship had been rolling, to a heavy
following sea, which would have been the case, supposing we had
made for Cape Otway. (A sheet anchor unstocked, and planked
over from the peas to the ring makes a most excellent rudder. Such
a one brought a large merchant ship home from the Cape to
Spithead. The anchor being planked over, two strong pendants
were attached to bolts on either side of the crown ; the rudder being
placed overboard the ring was triced up. in the rudder hole and
hung through that with chains; two spars were rigged out on
either quarter for the steering pendants to reeve through, and a
third one topped over the stem and capable of swinging over either
way, in order to support the weight of the tail. It answered
admirably, and no difficulty was experienced.) The scene of our
mishap was in latitude 40° S., longitude 120° E. We have every
reason to be most thankful that the occurrence was no worse, and
terminated as it did. Had Sunday afternoon prayers at 4 p.m.

May 16th, — Hoisted in temporary steering spars. And after
Mr. Butcher (the pilot,) with Mr. Rowley Loftie (the Government
Resident) and Dr. Rogers had come on board, weighed anchor at
8.30 A.M. and proceeded into Princess Royal Harbour, where we
anchored in five and a-half fathoms oflf the town of Albany. The
Governor of Western Australia, Sir William Robinson (brother of
Sir Hercules at the Cape), kindly telegraphed, offering to make
arrangements for us to visit Perth. There is a good road through
the bush all the way, but as it would take four and a half days to do
the 360 miles on police horses, and the same time would be taken
upon the return journey, and as the length of our stay here is so
very uncertain, we are afraid we shall not be able to go. The
Mayor of Perth, Mr. George Shenton, in the name of the citizens
of the capital, also telegraphed a welcome to Western Australia.
It is a great thing being at the end of the telegraph wire, we get
the London news fresh every morning, as the budget is telegraphed
through to Melbourne and Sydney. This is the first place we have
had the news from Europe daily since we left England. The P. and
O. mail steamers also call in here every week, on their way to or from
Ceylon, this being their first and last port of call in Australia.

May 17th, — ^The Rosetta, P. and O. mail steamer, arrived from
Adelaide en rmtte to Suez, and so will take our homeward mails
this morning. She reports having had very bad weather the whole
way across the Bight. In the afternoon we went with Mr. Loftie
and Dr. Rogers, and three ward-room oflScers, across Princess

1881.

AT ALBANY, WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

445

Koyal Harbour to the quarantine station on the opposite side
to shoot quail. The low hills covered with dark trees sloping
down to the white sandy beach, with the blue water as calm as
possible beneath the bright warm sun, reminded us very much in
their general eflfect of Bermuda. We rowed across and landed at
the small cottage, in which only a policeman and his family reside

AT ALBANY, KING GEORGE'S SOUND.

Date.

Wind.

TSMPERATUaX.

Sea.

Air.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Noon.

6 p.m.

May

N.W. 7, S.W. 8-8 1

Variable 1-2

N.W.I

Calm

Variable 0*2

22S.

S.W. 4 -7 -8

S.W. &N.W.

N.W. &S.E.

Variable 1

S.W. & S.E. 8-6-1

S.E. &N.E. 1-2

N.E 1-8

29 S.

N.E. 1-6-4

N.N.E. 1-8, N.W. to W. by S. 87

S.W. 7, N.W. 8-4, S.W. 7-8

Juue

S.W. to W. 7-8, S.W. to S. 8-7

S.S.W. toW. byS. 5-8-4

W.S.W. to N.W. 6-8, S.W. by W. 8*6

S.W. 5-2

6S.

S.W. to N.W. 2-4

S.W. to S. 6-2

N.W.I

Calm

Calm to N.E. 2

N.E. toN. 2-5 -1

N. 1, S.W. 8-8 to W. 8-5

(as the place is very seldom used for quarantine), and there we
lunched, and afterwards separated in parties to go over the hill
for quail. There are a great many of them in the bush, but they
are exceedingly shy, and require to be very silently and stealthily
approached. There was too much chattering and laughing in our
party, and so at first we did not shoot anything. But afterwards
the policeman took George and led him quietly aside in the

446 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

bush, when, whistling low, and so imitating the call of the quail,
he was immediately answered by several of the birds, who were
thus allured to come nearer, and out from the very heather and
shrubs amongst which we had been before walking without seeing
a single one. Standing on the top of the hill behind the quarantine
station, we had a clear view over the whole of King George's Sound,
and up into Oyster Harbour, which stretches away on its eastern or
opposite side in a similar way to that in which Princess Royal
Harbour does on the western. The hillside here abounds in
" black boys," curious black resinous stems, three feet high, and
one in diameter, with a small green tuft on top, and which make
a splendid fire in the bush when one is required. Of gum-trees
there are also no end, and we were told that so dry is the climate
that if any one catches a cold in the head here, he only has to take
his blanket and sleep out in the open air, and he comes home cured ;
such eflfect have the eucalyptus leaves. Albany is said to have the
finest climate in a continent of fine climates. The West Australians
hold their own particular climate to be the best and healthiest in the
world, and judged by the very practical standard of a death rate of 14
per 1,000 they cannot be far wrong. Nearly every one lives to an old
age almost as a matter of course. Nothing can exceed the charm of
the light, health-giving air ; and bright sunny days may be counted
on for nine or ten months of the year, with very occasional ex-
ceptions. Western Australia, close to India as it is, would make
an excellent sanatorium for our English troops in Southern India.
The Red Sea journey and the cold English winter — and much loss
of life and eflSciency resulting therefrom — would be avoided, and the
troops would be near at hand for return to their garrisons.

At 4 P.M. we got into the boat again and rowed further
up Princess Royal Harbour, on its southern side, then again
landed on a sandy beach. We walked up into the wood of gum-
trees behind the old cottage, once inhabited by a Ume-bumer of
the name of McBride, but which is now deserted. The trees here
were far larger, and stood more thickly together, than any on the
other side of the harbour; and the wood was full of paroquets,
who were shrieking and laughing. Not like Wordsworth's

** Exiled from Australian bower,

Nor aiugleness their lot,"
but,

*' Arch, volatile and sportive birds

By social glee inspired ;

Ambitious to be seen or heard,

And pleased to be admired. "

1881. AT ALBANY, WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 447

From tree to tree were hanging all sorts of creepers and parasitic
orchids ; and the dry calm air was filled with an aromatic or resinous
odour ; while beside the path which was cut through the wood were
several strangely-shaped and brilliantly-coloured flowers growing.
Cardinal Newman says somewhere that he often found it help him
in realising the genius loci when he first visited Rome to repeat
over to himself as he walked the streets of the Eternal city, " This
is Rome, is Rome." So we, as we wandered in these woods, scarce
realising where we were, repeated to ourselves, " This is Australia,
is Australia," and tried to take in somewhat of aU the name sug^
gested ; wondering too at the odd chance that had led to our coming
ashore at this out-of-the-way comer of the island-continent, rather
than at Melbourne as had been first intended. Some of us
strayed in one direction and some in the other, and as it was
now time to get back to the boat, the wanderers were recalled by
several " cooeys." It was getting dusk when we shoved oflT from
the beach to row back across the smooth surface of the harbour, in
which were reflected, as in a mirror, the rose, blue, green, and
golden hues of the sunset ; a few streaky clouds alone were in the
sky, and on the water here and there were little scarcely per-
ceptible catspaws made by puffs of wind. It was quite dark when
we reached the ship, and the stars had all come out ; there was no
moon till two hours afterwards. So ended our first Icmding on
Australian soil. Bricklayers in Albany earn ten shillings a day,
the ordinary labourer six shillings.

At 3 P.M. landed and rode with two gunroom messmates, on horses
which Mr. Loftie requisitioned from the police force, through the
town, out past the church, which, with its ivy-covered square tower,
looks just like an old-fashioned English village church, standing in
the midst of its green churchyard, in which are several yew-trees, and
a quantity of some sweet-smelling creeper with a flower like the
bougainvillea. We went along the Perth road, on each side of
which here and there stand up curious rounded protuberant rocks,
twenty or thirty feet higher than the soil on which they lie, and
which apparently have been thus rounded by some water friction.
Either they must have been once subject to tidal friction, or
else worn smooth by glaciers which may have descended from
some once higher hills which, however, have now entirely dis-
appeared; on their tops, too, still repose other smaller boulders,
which certainly have not been thrown there by artificial means,
but look as if they had been lodged by glaciers or by icebergs.

448 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

We rode on past the cemetery, and up on to one of the hills above
the town, from which we looked forth over a rolling forest of
eucalyptus trees, stretching away for forty miles to a line of hillg
in the interior, which were now, late in the waning light of the
afternoon, of an intense blue. The effect as the sun went down over
this wooded wilderness was weird in the extreme. We turned and
came down to the harbour, one blue glassy mirror, with not a breath
of air ; a few mares' tails in the sky alone remain to remind us of
the late blustering gale down south there outside. On coming on
board we found that many fish had been caught with line
alongside the BdccharUe by the bluejackets.

May ISth, — The divers began to work on the rudder on Monday
afternoon, the 16th, and since then we have been busy getting as
much weight forward as possible, in order by depressing the ship's
head to raise the stem sufficiently so that we may take off the
rudder. The sheet anchors were let go and weighed to the bows ;
shot, shell, and powder were taken on to the forecastle ; the five
foremost water-tight compartments were pumped full of water, and
all the foremost coal-bunkers filled with coal ; the steam-pinnace
hoisted up to the starboard catbead, and the launch to the bowsprit
cap, with the copper punt suspended from the jibboom ; the after
hold was cleared, and the gun usually under the poop was transported
forward under the forecastle. The effect of all this was to raise the
stem about four feet ; so that the last rudder-pin is to come out to-
morrow morning. The iron framework at the head of the rudder is
smashed right through ; though it is a foot thick it is broken just
like a slice of bread, and the head is twisted to an angle of 22°.

The arrangements that were made for hoisting the rudder out,
which weighed six tons, are chiefly interesting because they
illustrate the application of the somewhat limited resources
for this work which we possessed on board ship. After the
tillers had been removed and the norman-head lifted off and
placed on one side, some delay was occasioned from the diffi-
culty of drawing out a pin which connected the rudder-head to
the radder. When this had been done, at last the rudder-head
was lifted out, and a screw bolt and shackle were screwed into the
vacant space. The engine room threefold purchases were hooked
to a toggle on the upper deck, and to the shackle in the head of the
rudder P, and by this means the mdder was first raised until the
pintles were brought above, and came clear of the gudgeons or
sockets into which they fit. The next step was to hoist the rudder

1881.

AT ALBANY, WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

449

into the position Q, in order that it might be slung to a lighter and
taken ashore for repair. For this purpose the spare jibboom, a a a,
was rigged as a derrick on the poop, drooping over the stern, its
heel against the coamings of the poop skylight, well-shored and
backed up against the mizzen-mast, 5, and with a cross-lashing, c, to
the strong-back, d, on the poop. A ninner and tackle, ef, was used
for a topping lift, with an auxiliary up and down tackle,^ ^, one-
third of the way from the head. The guys, h h, were fore- and

DEBRICK RiaaBD rOB UNSHIPPING BUDDER.

main-top sail-tackles taken to the cutter's davit head, k ; the belly
guys, I, were two luffs, and two lufts were also used for heel tackles.
So far this was the gear used to support the jibboom as a derrick
against the weight that would come on it when lifting the rudder ;
and in addition to its usual rigging the mizzen-mast was further
supported by the mainstay tackle t, its wire pendant being taken
through the lubber's hole and hooked to its own part ; the single
block was hooked to a strap round the lower part of the main-mast,
and the fall taken forward.

VOL. I, 0 Q

450 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

As to the means which were used for raising the rudder, the
purchase, m, consisted of the screw purchase, the. lower block was
treble, the upper double, and the standing part made fast to derrick
head, the fall was rove through a leading block at the derrick
head, and from there through a block at the mizzen-masthead,
and from thence down on to the poop, and from there through a
leading block to the upper-deck capstan, which was used to haul in
the tackle and thus to heave the rudder up.

In the hpel of the rudder are two holes, n ; a two-inch bolt was
passed through the after one of these, and a chain strap secured to
it, to which the derrick purchase was shackled. The rudder pen-
dants, p — (which are the chains attached by a shackle to the upper
part of the iron framework, in order that by means of them the
rudder may be worked in case of the tiller being carrier! away) — were
brought in over the poop and set well taut with luffs, the slack
being taken in as the rudder lifted ; this was done by the tackles
until the pintles, four in number, were free of their braces ; (the
effect was also to steady the rudder as it was raised ;) the tail of the
rudder, meanwhile, was hoisted out by the derrick, and when it had
been raised a sufficient height was slung to the side of a lighter by
the cat chain. The purchase was then shifted to the head, and
that was swayed up and similarly suspended by the rudder pendants
to the bows of the lighter. The lighter was towed on shore and
the rudder landed with some difficulty, as at Albany we were
naturally entirely dependent on our own resources. When un-
shipped a large break was found near the shoulder, where there
was a flaw in the original forging ; for nearly one half of the
thickness of the rudder-head had altogether failed to be welded ;
the frame also was found to be cracked and twisted 22^ near the
lower part of the top pintle. The rudder was repaired by the ship's
carpenters and engine-room staff. It was landed at the end of the
pier and laid on its side; under the fractured and twisted part
a fire was then kindled, and when the iron was at a white heat, it
was bent back into position by means of levers extemporised from
capstan-bars, &c. It was quite impossible, with the means at our
disposal, to weld the broken parts together ; therefore a series of iron
braces and straps were shrunk on, in order to give sufficient strength,
it was hoped, to steer the ship under steam to Melbourne. When
the process was complete the rudder was reshipped with little or
no difficulty, and found to answer admirably. At Hobson's Bay the
same process as to lightening and shifting the weights of the ship

1881. FIRST RIDE Ix\TO THE BUSH. 451

was repeated, and the same means used for hoisting out the
damaged rudder, as we lay at anchor off Williamstown, where the
rudder was landed and finally repaired by the firm of Johnston & Co.
The Bacchante was docked previous to reshipping the rudder, whieh
after being repaired was lowered down into the dock, whence it was
hoisted into its place by our own derrick.

May Idth, — A cricket-match between an eleven of the ship, in
which George played, versus the Albany Union Club. We made
eighty- three and they made twelve in the first innings; it was
a good ground, and the day was fine, with not too much sun, ther-
mometer 65°. We then went in again and got 133 ; they made
eighteen but all their men were not out. The Bacchantes band
came on shore, and played up at the cricket-field, where there were
many of the colonists and a few aborigines.

BIIUKEM ruddrh-head.

May 20th. — Left the ship at 9 A.M. with two ward-room and
two gun-room messmates. Walked to the police barracks, there
mounted on horseback, and started with Mr. Lofbie for Marblup
and Wilson s Creek. Along the Perth road for a mile out of the
town, then turned off on the left through the scrub. The wood at
first consists chiefly of various kinds of banksias and " black boys,"
(huge cactus-like shrubs, of which there are several sorts, some short
and knobby, others tall and tufted with green blossoms,) and many
other forms of vegetation, unknown in Europe except in hot-
houses. The road track is rough, and where the soil is boggy
widens out. The eucalyptus is shedding its well-formed cups,
or seed-pods, all over the ground ; the peppermint trees with
their willow-like leaves; the paper-bark trees, off the stems of

G G 2

452 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

which the baxk peels in flakes like paper, and with foliage like the
yew ; and a great quantity of scarlet bottle-bush, formed a thick
cover on either side of the road, which occasionally showed signs,
by the blackened stems of some of the taller trees, of having been
at one time cleared by bush fires, although the undergrowth was
now standing four or five feet high. A number of black cockatoos, of
pretty grey honeysuckers, and other birds with bright yellow wings
were flying about. We crossed two rough wooden bridges, the one
six miles from Albany and the next one mile further on, and then
halted for an hour at Twelve-mile Bridge, newly constructed of
wood over a small ravine, on the sides of which, after having
loosened our horses* girths, we sat down to eat our sandwiches and
drink the cold tea we were carrying in our flasks. The ground is
very dry, and, seeing the way in which the grass and leaves take
fire when a lighted match is casually dropped upon them, we can
quite understand how easy it is when there is a little wind for fires
to spread in the bush. Dr. Rogers overtook us here, having started
later from Albany ; he was in an American cavalry regiment all
through the Northern War. He gave us also many amusing stories
of his adventures in other parts of the world. We rode on to
Marblup, where we arrived about 4 P.M., thirty miles from Albany,
at Mr. Young's farmhouse and clearing. The mantelpieces, the
tables, the cupboards, and all the furniture, are made of mahogany
or the darker jan-ah wood, and have a solid and handsome look.
The broad large inglenook, with seats on either side, looks un-
commonly snug with the iron dogs for the logs. Mr. and Mrs.
Young, their two sons and two daughters, gave us a hearty
welcome, and after taking a draught of warm fresh milk (of which
there seems an inexhaustible supply all over the place), we walked
up to the small shanty in which we are to stay. This consists of
two rooms completely empty and with clean bare floors ; each room
has a large open fireplaceT and plenty of jarrah wood, a pile of
which last is stacked in the verandah outside, so as to be con-
veniently handy for throwing on the fire all night through. Two
grand wood- fires are already burning bright and dry, such a
contrast to what we have had for the last few weeks on board ship.
A small two-wheeled cart that has brought our mattresses and
rugs, and what few things we want for the night, has arrived
before us, and we proceed at once to make our toilet in the open
air, for there is plenty of fresh water in the tank outside, and
a small wooden trough does duty by turns for each of the

1881.

FIRST NIGHT ON AUSTRALIAN SOIL.

453

party. Bevis, a large kangaroo dog, a sort of huge brown Scotch
greyhound, looks on as we make ourselves ready for Mrs. Young's
teVsupper, for which we went back to the farmhouse, and there
every one was very hearty and jolly, and did ample justice to the
fowls, minced kangaroo, the jam, cream, scones, and no end of
beautiful fresh milk and butter, such as we had not tasted since we
had left England (for there is none, or very little, of either of these
two last in South Africa or in South America). The day has been
cloudy, but without any rain, though every one says there is
every sign of it being wet and windy to-morrow, one of which is
that the hills in the distance are intensely blue. After tea found

OUR SUANTY IM TUK BUSH AT ktABBLUP, W.A.

our way up across the paddock to our night-quarters, and there we
slept as soundly as possible (nine in the two rooms), with the
windows open and the fires burning. Two iron bedsteads have been
rigged up in one of the rooms by the care of the good Scotchman
who owns the farm, and the rest sleep on mattresses spread on the
floor with their rugs wrapped round them. There are two pails of
fresh milk set out for us, which some drink neat and others prefer
to take mixed with a little whisky before turning in. Some fall
asleep at once, others not so soon ; the American doctor's cheery
ringing laugh sounding long on the quiet night air, as he and the
Commander tell alternately the most astounding yams, each with a

454 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 188L

dSnoilment more startling than the last. In the silent pauses
between the tales, while they are collecting their wits, we can hear
the croaking of the frogs away in the distance on the borders of
the marsh, and with these two sounds alternately ringing in our ears
we fall asleep.

^fay 2lst. — Up at daybreak for the kangaroo hunt. First,
however, in the delicious sunshine of the early morning ran down
to the creek, and had a good sponge bath amid the rocks in the
cool sea- water under the forest trees ; since, owing to its shallowness,
which extends for a mile from the shore, it was impossible to get a
swim ; and then, after taking a draught of fresh milk and a few mouth-
fuls of scones, started away at once. We rode after the kangaroo
through the bush, and soon put up a few, two of which, by the help of
the dogs, we killed, and kept their pads, which we sent home to the
Princess of Wales by the next mail as those of the first kangaroos
we have seen in their native land. We also caught an opossum
which we found in the traditional position up a gum-tree. Return-
ing at 11 A.M., had an excellent breakfast in the kitchen of the
farmhouse, agreeing that no cream or milk, butter or eggs, bread or
tea, we had ever tasted was half so good as those here set before us.
Meanwhile the two policemen had gone down to the creek and
caught some snapper and mackerel with lines, though generally
the fish here are netted, and the fishing nets are now hanging up
in the yard, where they are being mended. There are a quantity
of robins, only larger than ours at home, and another bird with a
yellow breast, all about in the fields near the house ; these last are
neatly cultivated with potatoes and corn. The paddock of good grass
is fenced round and sheltered by tall gum-trees ; the outhouses are
long, built of wood, and shingled ; the tree-stems are all blackened
by the frequent bush-fires, after which the grass grows better.
Mr. Young has been here forty years, and hails from Scotland ;
he possesses 400 acres of freehold, and leases another 40,000 of the
bush from Government. He was one of the sturdy early settlers, but
is still strong and hale after nearly half a century of colonisation^
and his stalwart sons now help him in looking after the farm and
sheep station. May he and Mrs. Young for many years yet take
life easily in the evening of their days, enjoying the affections of
a home from which they may see their children marry and go forth
to such other homes of their own, honest workers, with a shrewd
wit, to gather around them as years go on similar possessions and
increasing prosperity. There is a little orchard of English fruit

1881. KANGAROO, WILD DUCK, AND BLACK SWAN. 456

trees, flowera and garden produce in front of his cottage, round which
there is a broad verandah festooned with vines, which grow well
here in the open air. There is no part of the world which can
boast finer and more easily-grown grapes than Western Australia.
A very drinkable and most wholesome wine is now made in the
best vineyards, but time is required before the capabilities of the
soil can be brought to perfection. The ground cleared round about
under the eucalyptus trees, and now covered with good turf, gives
the place an appearance of being in an English park. From the
shanty we have occupied, at the top of the hill behind, there is a
wide view right away over the woods and creek, and to* the far-oif
hills beyond. Telegram arrived from Melbourne saying that the
remainder of the squadron are off Cape Otway.

At 1.30 P.M. we started to walk round the lagoon with John Young
and Dr. Rogers, to look for wild duck ; the Commander and the rest
were to circle round the other end, shooting as they went, and so
meet us on the opposite side. On coming down to a little creek,
we crept cautiously through the bushes and dried reed-beds, and
found a lot of duck at once, which were quietly swimming about in
the water. They are very shy, and have to be stalked until within
gunshot range ; one of the party incautiously showed himself and
the duck got away. The next time we were more wary, and
managed to get nearer to another lot in the next creek, where
George made some good flying shots high overhead, whilst other
birds that came close were missed. The whole place seemed alive
with teal, divers, crane, mallard, and blackswan. A large flock of
these last, however, kept more than a mile away right out in the
centre of the lagoon. We hear the other party firing in the dis-
tance and continue our walk round the shores of the lagoon, which
reminds us of the pictures of the "Dismal Swamp;" for amidst
the reeds and rushes are lots of paper-bark trees lying about in all
sorts of queer-shaped logs, just as they have fallen from time to
time and there been left uncared for ; and besides these, there are
countless " black boys " in all directions, short and stumpy, tall and
slender. Of these last the cattle are said to be very fond, and a
little further on we came across a flock of sheep that were being
driven by some native black fellows, and seemed to be nibbling at
them. We had with us "Jemmy," a half-caste boy between an
Australian black and a Malay ; he had a shiny black skin, and at
the same time black curly hair, long and thick ; and though short
seemed a handy lad. We came upon the rest of the party as

456 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

agreed, and then, in order to get at the blaekswan which we saw
swimming in the middle of the lagoon, set off to wade across, where
at low water it is only one foot deep ; this shallow bank, or tongue,
stretches right across the lagoon, and along it we waded with the
water up to our knees. The Commander with his rifle got one shot
at the swan, and one bird fell, but they were outside gunshot range,
and were all off at once, rising high in the air. We come out at the
edge of the lagoon and make our way up to the cottage again ; a
honeysucker and a few other small birds are shot on the way. We
have had a fine day's outing ; the sense of freedom and the splendid
dryness of the air are most delicious. We are, however, too many
for proper sport, and it is impossible to restrain the natural excite-
ment of some of the party, who as they find themselves drawing
nearer and nearer to their game, are too readily thrown off their
guard before the proper moment arrivea, and so the birds and
animals elude our shot accordingly. We had a good tea in Mrs.
Youngs kitchen, and found that the kangaroo we had got in
the morning was when minced very excellent. After supper the
wind and rain began, and it was a very squally night.

May 22nd. — After [^leeping very soundly went down for a
sponge bath in the sea-water in the creek off the rocks, and found
it very cold. On returning we did full justice to our breakfast.
Round each of our two plates Mrs. Young had laid a small
wreath of rosebuds, "for Sunday morning, and in memory of
England." When the things were cleared away we had a short
service in the kitchen, at which the whole family attended and
joined. This patriarchal and simple praise and prayer ended, we
mounted our horses, and having thanked Mr. and Mrs, Young for
their kindness, and the hospitable introduction which they had
given us to a settler's life in the Australian bush, we started for
Albany soon after noon. Eddy had ridden up on a black horse,
called " Leo " after the present Pope, and he had a long swinging
trot so rare in Australian horses ; but he returned to-day on a
chestnut called " Hengist," who had a delightful canter. Curiously
in Western Australia the black Australian native is often a better
tamer of a buck-jumper than Europeans, though he can never
have seen a horse before these latter introduced the animal.
There are of course many Australians whom no native can beat.
The two things required are great strength of leg muscle, and a
very strong saddle-girth ; if that bursts you are done. The great
secret of success is to break the horse in at once, directly he has

1881.

RIDE BACK TO ALBANY.

457

been first taken from the herd, and he will be quite quiet at the
end of a week if he is never allowed to buck-jump a man ; but if
he throws one or two men he will never be broken. Mr. Loftie, a
great rider himself, says that when he gets on a buck-jumper,
directly he feels the horse is going to buck-jump he catches him a
tremendous cut on the shoulder, and digs his spurs into his side and
makes the animal thus bound forward and gallop, and this is done
again and again till the beast apparently forgets to buck-jump, and
is quite subdued (p. 278). There is a considerable export trade in
horses to India and the Straits Settlements from Western Australia.

AN AUSTRALIAN BUCK-Jl'MI'ER,

They are good and cheap, 30/. being a long price for the best
mount. The horses we are riding to-day belong to the poUce force ;
they are usually at the end of a day turned out ungroomed into the
clearing, and left to roll and feed themselves, and are ready again
for the saddle the next day. The ordinary travelling pace for long
distances with these horses is six miles an hour ; they walk well,
and then go at a steady trot or slow canter, then walk again. The
two mounted police who have accompanied us in this excursion are
both Western Australians born and bred — Wheelock and Hayman
— strong-limbed, and bronze-faced, with fair hair and beard, and
bright eye. Their uniform is a very sensible one, and consists of a

458 CRUISE OF H.M.S BACCHANTE. 1881.

light blue riding-coat and cap with white band, in front of which is
a swan, the badge of the colony, in silver, and the words "Police
Force " round it. The weather was cloudy, but there was no rain as
we rode back through the bush. We halted again at Twelve-mile
Bridge at 2.30 P.M. for a pocket lunch, and arrived in Albany at
5.30 P.M. and went off to the ship in the usual six o'clock boat. We
heard then that two parties of officers had two days before left
the ship in two shore-boats to go to Breaksea Island, eight or nine
miles farther down the Sound, for rabbit shooting. One party
(consisting of Farquhar, Fisher, Henderson, and John Scott), had
left with two boatmen on Friday morning in the Tommy Dod, a
four-oared American whale-boat. They had first landed at and
tried Oyster Harbour for duck and swan, and after sleeping that
night there in their boat proceeded on Saturday morning to
Breaksea Island. There they found the second party (consisting
of Adair, Ingram, Le Marchant, Limpus, Osborne, and Hardinge),
who had sailed down thither in another whale-boat that same
morning. Both parties, after shooting all day on the rocky island
among the scrub, managed to bag about thirty-five rabbits, a couple
of dozen quail, and one or two rock wallaby. While they were
there a strong wind arose from the north-west which would be
naturally dead in their teeth on returning up the Sound. At
sunset, about an hour after they left the island, the wind that was
already blowing very fresh increased. The worst of the two boats
(she had been nicknamed Cojln before this by the residents) left
the island at 5.30 P.M., manned by two of her own crew, one of our
lieutenants, two subs, and three midshipmen, to pull back the dis-
tance against the wind and sea. About a quarter-past six the
better boat of the two, under the charge of the two Douglases, and
containing two of our lieutenants and two gun-room officers, also
left the island, overtook and passed the other boat, and ultimately
got back up the Sound, and succeeded in landing at the promontory
at Oyster Harbour about midnight. Their pull was more exciting
than pleasant ; the seas kept breaking over the boat's bows, fre-
quently with their force unshipping all the oars, and almost filling
her up to the thwarts ; it was with the greatest difficulty they kept
her head to sea ; and in one of the heaviest pitches she split one of
the garboard streaks and sprung a leak. That one of the crew who
was not rowing had to bale the whole time ; and, exhausted with
fatigue and benumbed with cold, could scarcely be kept awake.
This went on for six mortal hours, which seemed a lifetime;

1881. EXCURSION TO BREAKSEA ISLAND. 459

fortunately two of the party were stalwart members of our racing
boat's crew, and so managed to hold out. After landing they
walked the five miles into Albany, and then, drenched to the skin
as they were (for it was pouring with rain) and thoroughly done up
with their six hours' pulling for dear life against wind and tide,
hands raw and muscles stiff, found themselves without any means
at that time of night of getting off to the Bacchante where she lay
in the centre of the Harbour. Shivering with cold and hunger,
they betook themselves to the police barracks, where the sergeant
hospitably received them, gave them some dry clothes, the use of a
fire, hot coffee and bread and butter, and allowed them to rest on
the kitchen floor, and wrap themselves in blankets, &c., for which
they were very grateful. As the other boat did not arrive, it was
supposed at first she must be lost ; for when the Tommy Dod had
passed her she was making no way whatever, and it seemed im-
possible to hope that where they in a well-found boat with a
powerful crew had scarcely been able to reach the land, she could
have done anything else but founder, especially since it was not
until about an hour after they had passed her that the night was at
its worst. So high was the wind and sea that the two Douglases,
who for the last ten years twice every week have carried com-
munications between the lighthouse on Breaksea and the shore,
stated that they had never known so bad a night as this. When
she did not appear the next morning the worst fears for her
safety were intensified, for it was considered impossible that she
could have turned round in the heavy sea that was running with-
out having been instantly swamped, supposing those in her had
tried to run back before the wind to Breaksea. Besides which,
even if they should have succeeded in turning her, it seemed
exceedingly improbable that even if they fetched Breaksea they
would be able to effect a landing there in the darkness of the
night, and when the rope ladder, by means of which alone any one
can get on to the island, had been hauled up ; and if they did not
fetch Breaksea, the only other alternative was that they had been
swept out to sea past the island by the wind and tide. As it
providentially happened, however, they had succeeded in turning
the boat round before the worst of the storm broke upon them,
and when they neared the island, by firing off their guns they had
attracted the attention of the lighthouse-keeper, who lowered the
ladder, up which they were thankful to scramble and find them-
selves once more on terra firma. There they were most hospitably

460 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

received by the lighthouse-keeper and his wife, found everything
most beautifully clean and comfortable, and were warmly housed
for the night. But their friends who had made the shore were not
aware of their good fortune, and the utmost anxiety prevailed for
them, until at dawn the next morning the harbour-master made a
signal to the lighthouse-keeper to inquire if he knew anything
about them, and received the welcome reply, " Party safe." Next
day, when the wind lulled, they too returned to the ship.

May 2Srd. — Meanwhile divers and carpentera had been employed
about the rudder, and on Saturday 21st it had been hoisted out and
secured to the side of the lighter, and this morning it was sent on
shore towed by the steam pinnace. It will be temporarily repaired
here, enough to get the ship under steam to Melbourne, and there
we shall be detained another three weeks or so until the repairs
are completed, and probably the ship will have to go into dock.
The rudder is a very large one, in order that the ship may be
handy for steam manoeuvres.

May 2Uh, — Sent birthday telegram to the Queen at Balmoral,
and received reply. Dressed ship rainbow fashion; — then hung
up the washed clothes in the rigging to dry, where they remained
all day long. At noon fired a royal salute of twenty-one guns, and
drank the Queen's health in the ward- room. The town council of
Freomantle, the second town in the colony and chief port, tele-
graphed to us both their congratulations and expressions of loyalty,
for which we thanked them, and said, ** We were very glad to be
spending the Queen's birthday amid the loyalty of our fellow-
subjects on Australian soil." The Queen's birthday is the great
gala-day throughout the whole of Australasia; and each of these
seven colonies vies with its neighbour in celebrating it loyally.
We had athletic sports for the ship's company ashore on the
cricket-ground, which were great fun. There was a three-legged
race, in which men ran in pairs, with the right leg of one tied to
the left leg of the other ; a jockey race in which the men who
ran each carried another on his back; a tug of war, for which
there were five entries — marines, two teams of bluejackets, one
of stokers, one of townsfolk ; a sack race ; and a 100 yards flat
race for the town boys of Albany, and another for the men of
Albany, and all comers. An Aunt Sally was managed by two of
our petty officers, and a third was dressed up in petticoats as an
old woman, and was the centre of some few admirers in one comer
of the field. We went off to lunch with Mr. Loftie at his new

1881. AT ALBANY, WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 461

house down by the sea ; the great nuisance he has there are the
black flat-headed snakes, whose bite is mortal. They get into the
cellars, and he heard a couple of them " cooing together/' which is
curious, for snakes are generally supposed to be dumb and voiceless.
We afterwards returned to the field. It has been a fine bright
day, thermometer only 60°. The bluejackets on coming on board
had a special supper in honour of the day.

May 2oth, — At 4 A.M. arrived the P. & O. mail-steamer and sailed
at 8 A.M. for Adelaide. It happened to be my duty to board her as
midshipman in charge of the guard-boat, and I was amused
when in course of conversation on her deck one of her officers
remarked, " What a nuisance it is that the Princes are going to
Adelaide with us." ** Yes," I replied, " I quite agree with you, it
would be." Shortly afterwards, when the officer of the guard came
up and introduced us together we had a good laugh. At dinner
to-day we had the two tails of the kangaroo which we brought
down from Marblup made into soup. It tastes like oxtail, but with
a soupfon of something peculiar.

Atay 26th. — Usual school as every morning, and routine on board.
Artificers on shore mending the rudder, which, having been made
red hot, they are gradually bending straight by means of levers.
The day was dull and chilly, the wind being from the south-east.
An eleven of the officers played eighteen of the ship's company at
cricket, in which the former won by an innings and a few runs.
Afterwards we walked up to the head of the harbour and along the
whole length of its sandy beach, which is thickly covered with very
small and delicate shells. Princess Boyal Harbour is said to be
gradually silting up through the accumulation of sand which is
blown over from the dunes outside when the wind is southerly.
Find that Bass's beer is here two shillings a bottle ; the Albany
beer is thick and heady.

May 27th. — We heard to-day that Prince Leopold had been
created Duke of Albany, but found it was not from Albany in
Australia, but from " a district embracing Glenorchy in Argyleshire,
AthoU and Breadalbane in Perthshire, and Glenaber in Inverness,"
that he takes his title, but all the same it is an odd coincidence
as this Albany is derived from that Albany. The chief engineer
is ashore to-day, shrinking on the bands round the rudder-head
to keep the two broken pieces in place. Mr. Loftie and
Dr. Rogers came oflF to lunch; afterwards we "expended the
quarterly allowance " of outrigger and hand charges from the steam

462 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

pinnace, but failed to obtain any fish by that means as we had
done at St. Vincent (p. 252).

Mai/ 2Sth. — At 9.30 A.M. started in steam pinnace, with the
Commander and three ofiBcers and our shore-friend the American
doctor, to run down the Sound to Breaksea Island to shoot rabbits.
We landed soon after 11 A.M. and broke up into two parties and
began shooting at once. It was a beautiful day, but rather warm
walking in the sun. At 2.30 P.M. we went up to the lighthouse to
lunch, where Mr. and Mrs. Turner received us very kindly ; they
are the only people who live on the island. After lunch we went
on shooting again, and our bag at the end of the day was two
wallabies, three quail, and twenty-two rabbits ; there are plenty of
these last on the island, and we might have got more if we had
had dogs to put them up. We left in the steam pinnace at 6 P.M.,
but found it rather awkward on account of the swell, to bring such
a big boat close in enough to the rocks for the rope ladder, which
is over twenty feet long, to swing into from the cliff above. Ar-
rived on board at 7.15 P.M. There are signs that the weather is
going to change, and that we shall have more wind and rain. This
last came on the following day with a cold north wind. The Bob
Boy steamer from Perth anived ; as 'she came into Princess Royal
Harbour she stopped to tow off a little sailing brig which had gone
ashore here in the morning as she was trying to beat out of the
narrow entrance.

May 30/A. — H.M.S. Cleopatra arrived from Cape Otway at
9.30 A.M., where she was detached by the Admiral from the
squadron before he went into Port Phillip, in order that she may
render the Bacchante any assistance that may be needed. Captain
Durrant reports having had heavy squally weather, with much rain
the whole way across the bight. The Cleopatra has been now
fifty-two days at sea since leaving the Cape of Good Hope. The
yam is that her steel sides are so thin, and give so readily, that
they are bent in like brown paper in one or two places by the force
of the heavy seas we met with coming from the Cape. They are
of such light construction in order that a common shell may pass
through them without bursting on impact. For some reason or other
— which it is always difficult in such cases to define, though perhaps
it may be owing to the fact that most of our working first-class petty
officers were west countrymen, and the Cleopatra was also a west
country ship fitted out at Devonport — there had sprung up early
in the cruise a general friendly feeling between the ship's company

1881. NEWS OF OUR SQUADRON-MATES ARRIVE. 463

of the Cleopatra and our own ; and directly it was known on board
that she was coming here from Melbourne in order to convoy the
Bacchante thither, our ship's company made a subscription among
themselves to purchase ashore sufficient fresh food and vegetables
for all her men's messes, and directly she anchored sent alongside
in the pinnace this gift of fresh meat, bread, and vegetables, which
they had procured for their squadron-mates in their "chummy
ship." A general invitation to dinner was sent by our ward-room
and gun-room officers to hers. We learn that when the flag with
the other three ships of the squadron arrived at the rendezvous
off Cape Otway on the 21st, three days after losing us at sea,
the Admiral stood ofif from the land, still waiting in hopes that
the Bacchante would come up, out of consideration for those in
England, in order that no disquieting report might be telegraphed
home as to her not being with him. The signal, however, was all
the time flying from the lighthouse that the Bacchante was safe in
Albany, but as it was then getting dusk, the squadron did not learn
what had occurred until the news was brought off to them later by
the pilot-boat. George played in the Bacchantes second eleven,
against the Albany eleven to-day ; we won by seven runs. The
first lieutenant provided a liberal lunch in the cricket tent in
memory of " the glorious 1st of June."

May ^\st. — The homeward-bound P. & O. mail Khedive arrived
from Adelaide and Melbourne, bringing us the first mails we have
had for two months from England, and these in consequence
were rather heavy. She sailed again at 6.30 P.M., and we said
good-bye to Currey, who takes passage in her to England. We
are very sorry to lose him as a messmate; he was rowed on
board her by a gun-room crew. In passing his seamanship ex-
amination for lieutenant he got a very good first class, taking 995
marks out of 1,000. The wind is drawing round to the south
with heavy squalls, hail, and lightning, which continued for the
next three days, it being very cold, thermometer down to 46°,
Roxby and Curzon have started with Mr. Loftie to ride up forty
miles along the Perth road, and then into the bush to Qardenup ;
from which shooting expedition they returned on Friday, having
thoroughly enjoyed it, and bagged six kangaroos.

June 3rd. — George's birthday. Raining hard nearly the whole
day. Three bluejackets, who had gone ashore on leave, returned
on board to-day, after having been lost for a night in the bush,
which is very easily done when you once get off the beaten track ;

464 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

after dark they had the sense, however, instead of wandering further
about, to stop still where they were and lit a fire for the night.
They had caught an opossum, which they roasted in its skin and
shared amongst the three for supper ; with the exception of that
and three quail which they had managed to shoot, they had had
nothing to eat for thirty-six hours, and therefore came on board at
mid-day a-bit hungry, and got a rub down for their folly, which
might have ended worse, except for the good sense of one of the
quartermasters, who was the senior of the party. We dined to-
night with Mr. and Mrs. Loftie, and afterwards went to a ball given
by Mr. Hassell at the court-house, or magistrates' quarters, which
was simply but effectively decorated, and to which most of the
officers of the Bacchante and Cleopatra came. We danced nearly
every dance, and every one seemed to enjoy themselves thoroughly.
The Bacchantes band furnished the music.

JuTie isth. — Exercised running Whitehead torpedoes at a spar
that was towed astern of the whaler, with George in charge. The
second torpedo that was fired, when it hit the water, deflected from
3** to 6* to the left, ran along the surface and, striking the whaler,
ran clean through the port side of the boat, and remained there as
a plug fast wedged in the air-cases, which it had penetrated. The
boat at once filled, but, being a life-boat, kept afloat, and was towed
alongside with the torpedo still sticking in it by Captain Durrant
in his galley. The torpedo was then extracted, and the boat hoisted
up ; it was a lucky thing that nobody's legs were broken. Though
it was Saturday afternoon we manned and armed boats, launch and
pinnace away, afterwards firing. There was a cricket-match between
the Bacchantes and Cleopatras, both skippers playing. In the first
innings we made sixty-eight and they thirty-nine ; going in again
they made only seventeen, so we won by an innings and twelve runs.

June 5th, Whit-Sunday. — Heavy showers and squalls, wind from
the north-west, drawing round to the south ; services on board as
usual, and Holy Communion.

June 6th, — Running torpedoes in the forenoon. The second
eleven played a return match against the Albany eleven, and beat
them easily again. They gave us lunch at the cricket-field ; it
was a bright, warm day and very pleasant, In the afternoon there
was a riding party to King Point, from the high ground above which
the best view is obtained all over the Sound and its twin off-
shoots. Princess Royal and Oyster Harbours, especially in the low
light of the afternoon. From there we rode down over the hill

1881. AT ALBANY, WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 465

to Middleton beach, on the opposite slope, descending to which,
through the eucalyptus woods, another and quite different view
opens inland over the scrub far away to the lagoons and high hills
beyond. On the sandy beach here, as we were galloping full tilt, one
of the horses caught his forefeet in a hole, and turning head over
heels, rolled twice over his rider before he got free. Luckily the
sand was very loose where he fell, and so no bones were broken ;
though very stiff, he was able to mount and ride into the town,
two miles distant, at a walking pace. He had a hot bath directly
he got on board, but felt the effects for some weeks afterwards.
Mr. Johnson, the rector of Albany, dined on board ; as an Oxford
man he is not more isolated here than he would be in many an English
village, though he is 200 miles away from the nearest clergyman.
For the telegraph gives him the latest European news every morning,
and mail steamers which call in often bring him a passing colonial
bishop on his flight homewai'ds or outwards. The place too is un-
commonly healthy, and the people are hearty and kindly disposed.

Jxtne 7th. — The "Snowdrop Minstrels" (the Bcucchantes negro
troupe) gave an entertainment at the court-house this evening, on
behalf of the Seamen and Marines' Orphans* Home at Portsmouth,
at which they got £18. The next day Mr. Loftie came off and
brought us two white cockatoos, one of which afterwards became un-
commonly tame and a general favourite on board up to the day we
arrived in England. His berth on board was usually in the stoke-
hole, where he was taught many graceful tricks by the chief
engineer, and succeeded in imitating to a nicety the various sounds
of the machinery and of the men when " getting up ashes." A
picnic party went away in the steam pinnace towing the dingy up
Oyster Harbour and the King River, where some of the youngsters
got left behiud, and had to find their way home in the dark through
the bush. We have been here three weeks now. Adelaide is only
three days distant, so we are going thither by next mail in order to
visit South Australia, and hope to rejoin the ship at Melbourne,
where the captain expects to arrive about the I7th.

Jun^ Qth, — Were roused out at 1.30 AM., as the mail was in.
We went on board in the pinnace by the light of the moon and
stars, which, together with the comet, and Saturn and Jupiter in
conjunction, were all then brightly shining. We secured two good
cabins that happened to be vacant as far forward as possible. At
4 A.M. the Caihay, Captain Robbie, got under way. We had first
said good-bye to Mr. Loftie, who had come on board to see us off, and

VOL. L H H

466 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

thanked him for the constant efforts he had made to render our
three weeks' stay in the neighbourhood of King George's Sound
an agreeable one ; we asked him also to convey to the Governor
our regret that we could not visit Perth, the capital of the colony.
We shall ever cherish a grateful reminiscence of the kindly loyalty
we have experienced from all the Queen's subjects at this our
first landing-place in Australia. We steamed round the Bacchante
and Cleopatra, whose lights and those of the pilot's cottage, burning
bright at the top of the harbour, were the last sight we saw before
we turned in and slept sound till 8 A.M. the next morning.

[King George's Sound is one of the finest harbours in all Australia ;
in time of war it would be a matter of vital necessity to Great
Britain to secure it against an enemy. It is agreed on all hands that
this ought to be done, and done at once, and yet nothing has been
done, not a single piece of ordnance of any shape or size, or a single
torpedo or mine exists here. Parliamentary commissions have
recommended its fortification, military officers from England have
inspected it, and pointed out what ought to be done. The matter
has been " carefully considered " for twelve years, but the question
has not yet been decided what department of Government is really
responsible for it, whether the Admiralty or the War or the Colonial
Office at home, or which, if not all, of the five Governments in
Australia, for of course the scanty colonists of Western Australia
cannot be expected to defend it themselves ; and there has been
much correspondence with the Treasury as to where the necessary
funds, which would not be great, should be found. There is little
probability that anything adequate will be undertaken for its
protection until Great Britain is federated at least for purposes of
mutual defence with Australia. An enemy's ship with King
George's Sound for its harbour could do damage in a week to the
extent of several millions sterling, for all vessels passing to and
fro between England and the other Australian colonies, must
sight the entrance to King George's Sound, and the commerce
carried by them is equal in value to that of the whole of the
United Kingdom at the time of the Queen's accession ; and most
of this loss would thus fall on the British shipowners and under-
writers. It is becoming a coaling port for an increasing number
of merchant steamers, and the store of coal kept at this unfortified
place would be invaluable to an enemy. An English man-of-war
but ssldom condescends to visit it, but the anchorage is very
familiar to other maritime powers ; it was not long since it was

1881. WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 4&7

the station for some time of a Russian squadron. The first hostile
puwer that sees fit might make ot it an impregnable Gibraltar,
from which it would be impossible to dislodge him. Far from our
shores and from our minds as this out-of-the-way corner of the
earth lies, the time will come, and that soon, when we shall have
occasion to spend both thought and money upon it.

Western Australia, which occupies the whole western side, and
forms nearly one third of this great island continent, and is thus
the largest of all the Australasian colonies, contains an area ot
1,000,000 square miles. This one colony alone is thus neaily equal
in size to British India, is five times the size of France, and eight
times that of Great BriU\in and Ireland, and has a coast line over
3,000 miles long. Founded in 1829 (and therefore a little more
than half a century old) Western Australia has until lately made
but slow progress, although it oflers ample, almost boundless, scope
for enterprise and settlement. At this day only 32,000 settlers
(less than one third of the people of Carditt") are thinly scattered
over the occupied portion of her vast expanse, which stretches from
the tropics to the southern ocean. These colonists own 1,500,000
sheep, 70,000 cattle, and 35,000 horses. In the northern territory
the tiocks are almost entirely shepherded by aboriginal natives,
who take a larger shaie in civilised life and labour in Western
Australia than in any other part of the continent. The one great
need of the colony is more people (of the right sort of course), not
only more hands to labour but more capitalists to employ them.
The present settlers have expended lately £20,000, nearly £1 per
head, towards introducing labourers and emigrants from England,
who, if they do not maintain their families with ease in health and
comfort on arrival have only themselves to blame. Although there
is plenty of room and attraction for new comers, the difficulty
hitherto has been that the emigrants to Western Australia would
not stay here but went on to the wealthier and more bustling
eastern colonies, Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, with
which at present it cannot pretend to compete. However, already
the tide is setting the other way. Settlers, able to work and to
wait, possessed of shrewdness, judgment, and content with moder-
ation, if moreover they are able to command from £500 to £3,000,
are likely to do uncommonly well; for here they would not be
crowded out by bigger men, but would be able to obtain a iooting
in industries, which elsewhere no one who had not a much larger
capital would dream of entering. Of course folly and inexperience

H H 2

468 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

lead to loss and ruin just as quickly here as elsewhere : in the same
way as we are told they did even in Paradise. Besides direct
immigration from England, the promotion of public works is being
encouraged by the colonial government. Railways and telegraphs
are being built, the former on the American land-grant system,
(12,000 acres for every mile of railway made,) and will involve the
expenditure besides of over one million of money ; for easy and
cheap means of communication are absolutely needed to develop
the colony, which contains some of the most fertile Lmd in the world.
Fremantle (where Sir John Coode is bettering the harbour at a
cost of £100,000) on its western coast hopes to be the Brindisi of
Australia, when the railway is made continuously to Eucla, and over
the frontier into South Australia, and when the European mails
for Victoria and New South Wales would travel overland from this
the nearest point of call. The south west comer of the colony is a
grand forest country. An area equal to that of England is covered
with jarrah, karri, and iron-wood, the special qualities of the first
of which woods is that it is absolutely impervious to atmospheric
influences, white ants, sea water, or sea insects, and is non-inflam-
mable. The jarrah piles in the Suez Canal at the end of seven
years show no signs of deterioration. This timber traffic is capable
of great development ; knowledge, capital, and enterprise are of
course required for this industry. But even with these vast and
untouched forests the manner of working should be carefully
watched, and culpable waste prevented. The sandal-wood also
found in the more interior parts has for some years been a valuable
export, chiefly to China. Of the total territory, 2,700 square miles
have already been sold or granted away. Of the land still owned
by the Crown, 250,000 square miles have been leased for sheep
and cattle runs, but about 750,000 square miles of Western
Australia are yet even unexplored. At present only the parts border-
on the sea-coast from 50 to 200 miles inland are settled. There are
districts in which water is scarce; but boring for water and its
proper storage after the heavy rains, have as yet been scarcely
attempted, and will in time give a value to what is now compara-
tively worthless country. Good agricultural soil occurs in very
considerable tracte, and in other places the productiveness of ground
which appears nearly pure sand is astonishing.

The local Parliament meets at Perth ; there is only one chamber.
There are sixteen members, elected by thirteen electoral districts,
and the Crown nominates to eight other seats. The executive

1881. ALBANY TO ADELAIDE. 469

power is in the Governor s hands, assisted by an executive council
of seven permanent members (the colonial secretary, attorney
general, senior military officer, treasurer, surveyor-general, director
of public works, and commissioner of railways). Tact, carefulness,
temper, and good feeling are required for working successfully this
form of government, midway between a crown colony, and one
absolutely self-governed. Free institutions are only hindered in
Western Australia by its immense territory and scanty population ;
with more population will come full responsible government, as in
the other Australasian colonies. Meanwhile, as a preparation in some
degree for this, the colony enjoys the advantage of an excellent
education law ; the smallest centre of population boasts its govern-
ment school. The exports and imports have mounted 150 per
cent, in the last twelve years. Time, energy, and population from
Great Britain will yet further increase them.]

ALBANY TO ADELAIDE.

JuTie lO^A. — It was a curious sensation to get up this morning
and have no regular work to do at sea. Everything in the ship
appears very clean and nice, the decks especially so. There
happen to be only thirty-seven passengers on board. The wind is
gradually rising and at last turns to a strong muzzier from the
north-east, the sea too is getting up : the captain is complaining
that we are only making twelve and a half knots against it ; this,
however, seems a fair speed to us, who have been accustomed lately
to the leisurely and dignified crawl of a man-of-war. The compass
that the mail boat carries is far in advance of the old service
pattern, being one of Sir William Thomson's, which, up to the
present time, have been forbidden to the Navy by the Admiralty,
but which are, nevertheless, gradually coming into use. The officers
in the mail service find no difficulty in adjusting the magnets, though
it is feared that naval officers might. There are lots of albatross
following astern, and the night turns out wet and squally, with
plenty of scud flying across the moon. Before the morning of the
next day (the 11th) we dropped to eleven knots, owing to the strong
north-easter; and at noon had only run 252 miles since twelve
o'clock on the 10th. It is blowing four to six, but going against it
makes it appear stronger. The chief engineer says that he has
been eight years in the ship, and has never been so unfortunate in
the weather as he has been on this trip. The Cathay was two days

470 CRUISE OF H,M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

behind time at Albany, having had strong head-winds all the way
across the Indian Ocean from Ceylon to the Leuwin ; and now,
when they had hoped for better luck, after having doubled that cape,,
liave still fallen in with head-winds on the other side. We find her
a most comfortable boat, especially forward away from the screw :
she generally carries her larger cabin ports open, each being a foot
and a half square : even in the weather we have now we can carry
the scuttles open. The ship is manned throughout by Lascars, as
are all the P. & O. boats. This race formerly manned the Moguls
navy, and when that came to an end took to piracy. They are full
of spirit, capital workmen, do not shirk exertion, and are trusty if
led by English officers. The younger members of our party have
extemporis*»d various games on deck — tug-of-war, quoits, &c. —
and so keep ourselves warm and get up an appetite for the meals,
which seem to come pretty frequently.

Sunday morning (the 12 th) was bright and fresh, the wind had
fallen, and the sea had gone down. Had regular service in the
saloon. We sighted Kangaroo Island at 10 A.M., a succession of
barren-looking bluffs with low, scrubby trees on the top, and were
abreast of Cape Borda at 11.30 A.M., made our number, and saw the
flagstaff there dressed with flags in our honour. In the afternoon
nearly every one came on deck to sun themselves. A good many
of the passengers went down into the saloon, where several hymns
were sung to the piano. The country, as we draw near to it, appears
to be open and undulating, mostly under cultivation and divided
into fields in such a way as t^ give it very much the appearance
of England. Behind this agricultural district the country rises into
oi)en wooded land, backed by a high range of hill-country clothed
with thick forest. Mount Lofty, almost due east of Adelaide, is
2,400 feet high. These Adelaide plains extend inland from the
coast for an average distance of about ten miles, with a gradual
increase of elevation. There was a partial eclipse of the moon in
the evening, which we saw very well.

We came to an anchor off Glenelg at 8 P.M., towards the close ol
a brilliant English summers day. Lieut. Jervois, R.E., aide-de-
camp to the governor, came off in a steam launch to fetch us ashore.
After saying good-bye to Captain Robbie, and thanking him for
his kindness, we landed at Glenelg jetty, where there was a great
crowd of people, who were out for their Sunday afternoon. We
walked up to the end, where a train was waiting to take us to
Adelaide, six miles off. Here the Duke of Edinburgh landed for

1881. ARRIVAL I^ SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 471

the first time on Australian soil in October, 1867. He stayed for
three weeks till November 20th. Thirty-one years before that
•Captain Hindmarsh, the first governor of the colony, landed on
the Mount Lofty plains and took possession of them in the name of
William IV., and called the town after that King's queen. As we
drove up to Government House, we heard the first cheers of a British
crowd that have sounded in our ears for many a day. It being
Sunday evening the streets were full of people, who all appeared
as glad to see us as we were to see them. Everything seemed
like home, but there was none of that squalor we see in the out-
skirts of Liverpool or Manchester, and no poverty anywhere
apparent. Everywhere there is an all-pervading look of cleanness
and freshness. Sir William and Lady Jervois had supper waiting
for us, and we went to bed a little before midnight. We hear
that the Bacchante and Cleopatra left Albany at 7 A.M. to-day for
Melbourae.

AT ADELAIDE.
June l^th, — After breakfast had a game of lawn tennis in the
garden, and afterwards drove with the governor to the General
Post Office, a large square building, built in Italian style and of
white freestone, at the corner of Franklin and King William Streets
and opposite to Victoria Square. We saw Mr. Todd ^ the Post-

^ He was formerly Assistant Astronomer at the Cambridge observatory, and was
appointed Superintendent of Telegraphs and Government Astronomer by Lord John
Russell in 1855, during the Crimean War. The following year he established tele-
graphic communication with Victoria (then in the heyday of its gold fields, and a
large customer for South Australian wheat and flour), Mr. (now the Right Hon.)
H. C. Childers being then the Victorian Minister of Trade and Customs. In 1858,
Sydney and Melbourne were connected by telegraph, under one of Mr. Todd's assistants.
Tasmania in 1859, Queensland in 1861, New Zealand in 1865, and Western Australia
in 1 869 followed suit. Eminently adapted to meet the requirements of a group of
contiguous colonies like those of Australasia, with their widely separated capitals or
centres of commerce, and scattered population, the telegraph made rapid strides, and
at the present time every town is connected by the electric wire. Throughout these
colonies there is now (with few exceptions) a uniform rate of one shilling per ten
words, exclusive of names and addresses. But to South Australia belongs the Honour
of having at her own cost and risk, electrically bridged over the Continent, a distance
of over 2,000 miles, through a difficult and dry country of which little was then known,
from the south to the north coasts, where at Port Darwin a connection is established
with the submarine cables. This work, which has done so much to ])romote the
growth and prosperity of the Australian colonies, was by Mr. Todd's energy and
I)erseverance accomplished after two years* hard work in 1872. South Australia then
contained only 200,000 people, less than the whole population of Bristol, but on this
project they spent half a million of money. The whole line is patrolled once a month.
The stations in the interior are substantial stone buildings, well supplied with water,
each having a sufficient staff of operators for working the line night and day, and for
keeping it in good repair ; wells have been sunk, and now a journey right across the
heart of Australia no longer presents any formidable obstruction. Nearly the whole
of the interior which the line traverses is adapted for pastoral purposes, and is rapidly

472 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCUANTE. 1881.

master-General and Astronomer-Royal of the colony, and after he
had shown us the various arrangements for sorting the mails, and
allowed us to exchange messages with the central telegraph station
in the heart of Australia, we went up to the top of the Victoria
Tower, (so-named "as a monument of the affectionate regard in
which Her Most Gracious Majesty is held by the people of this
country"). Its foundation-stone was laid by the Duke of Edinburgh,
November 1st, 1867. From the summit we had a fine bird's-eye
view of the city. This consists of a park extending over two hills,
with the river dividing them; one square patch of 700 acres is
covered with streets of shops and banks in the southern park, and
another of 300 acres on the northern hill is appropriated to villas,
churches, colleges, and rows of little vine-clad one-storeyed houses
in wide gardens. The whole covers 2,000 acres. The older spire
of the Town Hall, on the opposite side of the street, is called the
Albert Tower, and contains a peal of eight bells. It was finished
in 1866. The superficial area of the principal room is the same
as that of the London Guildhall. The chimes for the clock are the
same as those at Great St. Mary's at Cambridge. The sight of
these two rival towers individualises Adelaide among Australian
cities. From there we drove t-o the Botanical Gardens, at the
north-east comer of the city. They were founded in 1855, and
extend over 130 acres. Doctor Schomburgk, the director, took us
all over them and into the museum, which has been lately built,
and is very well arranged ; it contains specimens of birds and
animals as well as of plants. The ground is undulating and all
good soil. The hedges are chiefly of yellow caxitus, with acacia,
magnolia, fig, aloe, and pomegranate, on every lawn. There are five

becoming settled thronghont. Not only the opening np of the interior is thus due
to South Australian enterprise, but also the means by which space and time have been
practically annihilated for business purposes. London can now communicate with
Australia in less time than forty years ago it could with Manchester or Liverpool. It
is no uncommon thing for telegrams from Melbourne and Sydney and Adelaide to
reach London in a couple of hours, thus beating the sun in his diurnal march by seven
or eight hours. Australia now knows the result of the Derby, the University Boat
Race, or a cricket match in the old country, as soon almost as it is knoWn in England.
Australian merchants can feel the pulse of the British markets, and the other markets
of the world, and avail themselves of their fluctuations, and supply their requirements
as readily as though they lived on the spot. Trade has thus been rendered safer,
wild speculation has been checked, and capital by being more frequently turned over
has increased its potency. The Australian lives in fact in the atmosphere of English
life. The evening newspaper gives him the result of that morning's division in the
House of Commons at the same hour as it is announced by the morning papers in
England. In fact the social, political, and national life of Australia pulsates every
moment with that of Great Britain. Though the average cost of a message is 6Z. the
telegrams have doubled their number in the last ten years. The tariff is over 8j. per
word ; lor press telegrams, however, only 2j. dd.

1881. ABOUT IN ADELAIDE. 473

acres besides of ornamental water. From spots in the gardens
there are fine views of. the Adelaide range of hills and of Mount
Lofty, its highest point, about eight miles away.

In the afternoon drove with the governor past the newly-founded
University buildings to St. Peter's College, where we had the
pleasure of seeing in the library Bishop Short, who, though very
old and infirm, (he was consecrated first Bishop of Adelaide in
1847,) had mustered up strength to come here to-day, as he has
had the prosperity of this educational establishment so warmly
and for so long a time at heart. Dean Sandford was also there.
We went through the hall, the dining-room, the library, and the
chapel : this last was very nicely arranged. We were also intro-
duced to the head-master (the Rev. W. Stanford) and went with
him and saw the boys in the school, bright, happy, and vigorous.

We then drove on to the Prince Alfred School, of which the Duke
of Edinburgh laid the foundation stone November 5th, 1867.
Though entirely undenominational, this college is managed and
conducted by the Wesleyan body. We saw all the pupils, of
whom there are nearly 300 : 60 of these are resident, the rest
day-boarders. We asked for an extra half-holiday at both schools.

There is a splendid gymnasium at both schools, and one thing
that surprised us particularly is the large amount of ground which
each possesses, and can therefore in future years develop its
buildings and recreation-grounds to the fullest extent required.

Nothing can be prettier than the outskirts of Adelaide. Its
founders reserved a park a quarter of a mile broad all round the
city : this gives now a charming drive five miles long, outside this
band of park again are the olive yards and the villas of the citizens.

Went for a walk in the town after returning home and were
much struck by the booksellers' shops, of which there are several in
the main street, containing all the newest English works, for
which there is evidently a great demand here. Tramcars, omnibuses,
and cabs, are running in the streets as at home. Called in at the
Club and saw there Mr. Hamilton, one of the oldest members.

At dinner this evening there were about twenty people, amongst
whom were Sir Henry Ayers, K.C.M.G. (the President of the
Upper House), and the Hon. R. D. Ross (Speaker of the Lower
House), Chief Justice Way, Chief Secretary Morgan, Mr. Edwin T.
Smith (the Mayor of Adelaide), and Colonel Fitzroy.

June lUh, — Started at 6 a.m. by special train for Kadina, Sir
William Milne, Mr. J. Stirling, and Colonel Fitzroy went with us.

474 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

Passed Gawler at seven, and breakfasted at Balaclava soon after
eight, then on to Kadina. The train ran through much wheat
land, which, as it is now near mid- winter, was covered with stubble.
The original scrub and wild grass have been superseded by wheat
fields and rich pasturage ; flourishing homesteads stretch far away
over plain and upland, and all wear an appearance of successful
industry ; one great wheat field fifty miles without a break. The
grass paddocks on either side of the line looked fresh and green
after the late heavy rain. The yeomanry and the farmers here are
the backbone of the colony. The agricultural interest we hear
is the strongest, though the squatters naturally, with their huge
sheep runs, are somewhat jealous of the farmers. At Hamley
Bridge there was a break of the gauge, and we had to change
carriages. In this one colony of South Australia the railways are
constructed on no less than three different gauges. Those in the
colony of New South Wales again are of a different gauge, four
feet eight inches, from those in Victoria, which are five feet three
inches, and in Queensland, which are three feet six inches, so that
probably (as we have learnt by experience in England in the case
of the Great Western Railway) several of these lines will have
ultimately to be relaid : this might have been avoided if some
combined action between the different railway companies of the
five provinces had been at first arranged. Although, perhaps, the
line which is now being constructed to follow the telegraph wires
right across the centre of Australia, and which is a narrow gauge
of three feet six inches, may be an exception to the general rule.
One third of the distance across has been accomplished. Already
600 miles northwards from Adelaide have been constructed, and
very shortly there will be a line running southward from Port
Darwin 150 miles to meet it. A transcontinental line will be for
Australia what tlie Central Pacific Railroad has been for North
America. Another inter-colonial line is being made to connect
Adelaide with Melbourne, as well as two others, one up to the
south-west border of Queensland, and a third to the north-west
border of New South Wales. Many settlers are gradually pushing
their way up into this portion of the country, where formerly it
was considered impossible to take up any runs, owing to the want
of water. This has, however, in several cases been found to exist
plentifully beneath the soil when struck by artesian wells ; so
much so that you hear settlers talking of the supposed existence of

1881. UP TO KADINA AND MOONTA. 475 '

an underground river beneath the centre of Australia,^ Such
stations as these would benefit greatly by and largely augment
traffic up and down the line into the interior.

After passing Port Wakefield the line enters the native scrub,
and then, ascending up a steep incline and many cuttings through
dark red rock, draws near to Kadina, where we arrived after thus
crossing the York Peninsula about 11 A.M. The Mayor met us on
the platform and read an address. We then got into two brakes
each with four horses and drove to Moonta, eight miles, through the
open bush ; there was a good metal road lately laid, but the drivers
preferred, as many others seemed to have done before them, to
strike out a road for themselves on the turf, where many parallel
lines traced by the wheels of our predecessors extended for two or
three hundred yards on either side of the regular road. Tall brick
chimneys, lofty scaffoldings with wheels at the top, and the other
usual surroundings that bespeak proximity to mining operations,
though there was no smoke or grimy blackness sucb as usually in
similar cases sullies the purity of the country air, greeted us as wo
drove up to Captain Hancock s office. There we dressed in flannel
shirts and trousers, changed our hats and boots, and walking to
the head of Green s shaft got four at a time into cages, by which
we were lowered one hundred and fifteen fathoms into the rich
copper mine below. All here, " one and all," are true Comishmen,
fine stalwart fellows ; most of those we see are young, tall, and broad,
with a slight South Australian drawl, but of the real English bone
and sinew and with a straightforward look about their faces. Mining
operations here, though now depressed, seem in a fair way of revival.
We were to have gone on to Wallaroo, where there are some large
smelting works with blast furnaces as large as those at Swansea,
but time would not allow. The Mayor of Wallaroo, an Orkney man
whose acquaintance we were very glad to make, drove with us back
to Kadina, where we lunched. We left Kadina about 4 P.M., and
arrived at Adelaide after a quick run down at 8 P.M.

June loth, — After breakfast busy writing letters for the mail until
at 11 A.M. started on horseback with the governor to ride to Marble
Hill, thirteen miles away and over 2,000 feet above sea level on
Mount Lofty. From the summit of this last we had many beautiful
views, one especially from the Eagle Nest Inn down Waterfall
Valley, looking back on Adelaide and the sea in the distance.
The hills here are all covered with trees to the summits, and

* Compare p. 62.

476 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

reminded us of the blue mountains in Jamaica. But about
everything — the hedgerows, the fields, the grass, the carts, the
men, these last stalwart and brown and unexcitable — there was an
unmistakable stamp of England, as we rode along and gradually
mounted the hills to the governor's house. This the colony has
been fortunate in having been able to get well designed and well built
for them by Sir William Jervois himself an engineer officer. In
summer time the heat (which is said to cause great infant mortality)
in Adelaide is so oppressive that every one who can escapes from the
plains on to the hills, and here it is that then during those months
the governor resides. Most houses here are furnished with English
made furniture, as at present it is cheaper and better than what is
made in the colony itself. It was a bright sunny day, though a bit
showery in the afternoon, so after lunch, we wandered down through
the gardens that are yet only half laid out on the hill side that
slopes rapidly away from the house, and remounting our horses
rode back to Adelaide, where we arrived soon after five. That
evening Lady Jervois had a ball, to which nearly 400 people came.
June IQtK — After breakfast started with the governor by special
train to Freeling, where we arrived at 11 A.M., and then drove
through Greenock. Nuriootpa, Davieytown, twenty miles to
Collingrove, Mr. J. H. Angas's place, where we arrived at 1.30
P.M. The road lead up and down over a rolling land of fertile
red eartih, and past many villages, some of them inhabited
entirely by Germans, (the holdings are mostly of 200 acres each,
well tilled, each side of the road), and others entirely by Swiss,
until we arrived at Angaston.^ A couple of miles outside this
township a cavalcade of Oddfellows, with sashes and bows, came
forth to meet us. One of them was brandishing his red banner on
high, which operation, as neither he nor his horse were used to
it, caused the two to part company, the man being shot in one
direction, and the banner in the other. We picked him up and
put him in one of the carriages, and carried him back to a public-
house at the entrance of the village from which he had started.
This was his home, and here we left him, a little stunned and
bruised, but no doubt able, after further slight refreshment, to
feel quite himself again. At the school-house in Angaston the

* According to official statistics published at Berlin, in South Australia there
are nearly nine thousand German residents : in Victoria about the same number ;
in Kew South Wales about seven thousand, and in Queensland over eleven thousand.
In all Australia there are thus about the same number as there are in Great Britaia
In the United States there arc nearly two million Germnns.

1881. VISIT TO COLLINGROVE. 477

district council read a short address to the governor, to which he,
standing up in the carriage, replied in a few hearty and forcible
words, which were cheered to the echo by all the inhabitants and
holiday-folk who were standing round. The Rifle Volunteers
looked very well and formed a guard of honour. The whole place
was elaborately decorated with evergreens and banners. Passing
out through the town, we have pointed out to us on the right the
buildings belonging to Messrs. Smith & Co. and Messrs. Salter &
Co., where much South Australian wine is made from the vines
that grow very well about here ; we then came to the entrance
of the park, which is full of fine large eucalyptus trees, and consists
chiefly of grass-clad undulations. The land is too poor for agricul-
ture, which has here been tried and failed, owing to the soil being
entirely different to that we had passed over further down. We
entered the park and drove past Lindsay House (where Mr.
Angas's father lived and died, and close lo which in a
mausoleum amid the trees he is buried), up to CoUingrove,
which is a suug, new, one-storied house, with a verandah
and pretty garden of flowers all round. After lunch some of us
went out for a good walk about the park, and took our guns with
us; we saw some duck and a hare, but did not get anything.
Mr. Charles Angas showed us some beautiful skins, both of birds
and animals, which he himself had stuffed and preserved. Every
room in the house seemed filled with good modem books ; amongst
others which we enjoyed looking over were two large folio volumes,
one on New Zealand and the other on South Australia, splendidly
illustrated by Mr. Angas's brother : they are both out of print now.
In a copy of Gould's work on the Birds of Australia^ of which there
are 690 distinct species, which is more than the number found in
Europe, many of the most beautiful kinds were figured, such
as the paradise bird, the lyre bird,. the mound-builder, and a large
number of parrots and pigeons.

It is much colder here than down at Adelaide, and we are glad
of the large wood fires, which burn brightly in every room, and
are very comfortable. Amongst other things that are very good
we much enjoy the real Devonshire cream, which reminds us of
old Dartmouth days and Stoke Fleming rambles.

June nth. — We are over 1,200 feet higher here than at
Adelaide, and the barometer has gone with a bound from thirty
inches to twenty-nine. It is a fine bright bracing morning. After
breakfast we go down to look at the emus in the paddock, where

478 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1S31.

they are kept for laying eggs. They lay twice a week in a strange
rough sort of nest, which is simply a heap of weeds lying on the
turf. The eggs are a dark green colour, and slightly smaller than
an ostriches. They are often arranged with silver settings for ink-
stands or candlesticks. We then mounted and went coursing.
This was the first time we used the Australian saddle with
the knee-pads, which are two strong leather projections about
four inches broad, to which the knees tit close in riding, and are
thus protected from the blow of any casual branch they may
conic in contact with in the bush ; you are also, at the same time,
by their means supposed to get a better hold of the saddle. Mr.
Charles Angas brought out his six beautiful greyhounds, and we
had two good runs, one for two miles, and killed each time. The
hares, when started, ran away right through the park, which
extends for some miles round Collingrove, and doubled up hill,
and down dale, and in the open through the brushwood cover.
We thus had a fine opportunity for admiring the great variety of
the gum trees; their stems are very various, and so is their foliage,
the leaves of some are much darker than those of others ; and far
from there being any monotony in them, an inexperienced eye
would think that there are twenty or thirty entirely different sorts
of trees. There were lots of magpies and crows about all over the
place, and a quantity of paroquets, who, when uttering their notes
together, make a noise just like a troop of starlings at home.
After this we rode to the farm and saw some fine stock, some
of it bought from Colonel Kingscote at home : three bulls, one of
them an amazingly fine Herefordshire bull, which Mr. Angas
had just imported at a very high price, and some promising
fillies, and a whole mob of pretty ponies not yet weaned. There
wx^re flocks of sheep all over the park. Returning to the house
we saw young Angas's coUey and some other dogs in the
kennels, amongst others some pretty fox terriers, just like those
at Sandringham, and a fine pug. After lunch we drove away at
1.30 P.M., back to Freeling, and left by special train for Adelaide,
where we arrived at 6 p.m. Went at 7.30 to dine at the
Parliament House with the Speaker, Mr. Ross, and the whole of
the Lower House (except two). There were about sixty of us
altogether. After that to the Mayor s ball at the town hall, which
was a very fine thing. The whole front of the building was
brilliantly illuminated with gas, as also had been that of the
Parliament House with coloured lanterns. Although it turned

1881. AT ADELAIDE. 479

out a very wet night, enthusiastic crowds of people thronged the
streets. The Mayor read an address in which he spoke of the
attachment of the people of South Australia to the Queen and to
Great Britain. " He felt assured that in no part of Her Majesty's
vast dominions would the sentiments of devoted and affectionate
loyalty to our beloved sovereign, that animate all classes in the
province of South Australia, be exceeded, nor will a warmer and
more cordial greeting be anywhere extended to you." Eddy read
our reply in which we thanked him for all he had said regarding
ourselves, and added, "Though our stay in South Australia has of
necessity been brief, we can assure you it has been a thoroughly
enjoyable one. We had often heard of your well-being, and of your
loyalty ; we have now witnessed them both for ourselves. Sons
of the Duke of Cornwall, who has bid us say how much he regrets
to have not yet himself visited your colony, we rejoiced at Moonta
to find ourselves in the midst of so many miners and true-hearted
Cornishmen. In passing through your agricultural districts we
have been greatly impressed by their resemblance to the fields of
our own home counties, and we could often have taken them to
be in reality part and parcel of the old English land. In visiting
your pastoral regions, we have admired the beauty of the open
country, and its manifold attractions ; while we have experienced
on all sides a warmth of kindly welcome which we shall never
forget. If in future years my brother or myself should again visit
your hospitable shores, we shall confidently hope to find that, with
God's blessing, further enterprize has still more amply developed
the various resources of this thriving and promising colony."

There was a very good portrait of the Prince of Wales hanging
behind us on the dais : and an immense number of flowers and
ferns and other green decorations brought from the Botanic gardens.
There were about 800 people present at the ball, but it was not at
all crowded, as, besides the ball-room, other rooms were all thrown
open, the council chamber being used as a card and smoking-room.

June \%th, — We went to the opening of the National Art Gallery.
This is the beginning of a national gallery for South Australia:
some of the pictures have been purchased by a colonial parlia-
mentary grant and others given by private citizens, the Queen has
lent some from Windsor, and the Prince of Wales others : Chief
Justice Way did the honoui*s. One hundred men selected from
various companies of the Volunteer Force (of which there are in all
1,500) were drawn up at the side, under Captain Harrold, and

480 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881

looked very well in their scarlet uniforms. These men volunteered
to go to the Transvaal, and meant it too, but their ofier was declined
by the Home government. South Australia evidently considers
itself a real and living portion of the British Empire, and is quite
willing to share the burdens of citizenship with the mother country.^
We then drove to Morphettville six miles off. It was very cold,
but the rain held off. Mr. Baker, the steward of the South
Australian Jockey Club, explained to us the " Totalizator," an
instrument to do away with welching and "the ring." The names
of the horses that are to run in any particular race are arranged
in a row ; under each of them there is a small slit, through which
each person puts the stake for which he wishes to back that par-
ticular horse, and receives a receipt for the same from the clerk in
charge. The current odds are shown under the horse's name as well as
the actual number of persons who had backed him at those odds.
The sum total of the money deposited, after a small percentage to
the Racing Club, is divided at once, immediately after each race, on
the production of the receipts by the ticket-holders of the winning
horse. We had lunch with Mr. Baker at the back of the grand
stand, where also were drawn up some capital London built drags.
There was a hurdle race, a steeplechase, and a flat race, whilst we
were there. After that we drove back to town, planted two trees
(a deodara and Norfolk island pine) in the Botanic Gardens next
to the cedar that the Duke of Edinburgh planted, and then went
on to the Oval, where there was an intercolonial football match
between the Carlton Club from Victoria and a team from Adelaide.

^ On the 12th Feb. 1885, the New South "Wales government telegraphed an
offer to London of two batteries of their field artillery, and a battalion of infantry
well drilled and disciplined, -to land at Soakim in thirty days after embarkation,
all expenses to be defrayed entirely by the Colony. South Australia, Victoria and
Queensland also offered their forces for the same purpose on the 16th and 17th. In
Nov. 1884 Canada had volunteered to raise a force for service in the Soudan. These
actions speak louder than the words of those who tell us that the colonies are like
ripe fniit ready to fall off from the parent tree at the slightest shock, or that the
English people " do not care for Egypt."

" You, like that fairy people set
Of old within the circling sea,
Far off from men, might well forget
This elder nation's toil and fret,
Might heed not aught save game and glee.

" But what your fathers were you are
In lands the fathers never knew.
'Neath skies of alien Rign and star.
You rally to the English war,
Your hearts are English hearts, and true. "

1881. OVERLAND FROM ADELAIDE TO VICTORIA. 481

There must have been at least 3,000 people on the ground, which
was very slippery. The Carltons won by three goals.

After dinner in the evening we went to the theatre and saw
** Caste " played by a company of amateurs, Colonel Fitzroy, Captain
Haggard, and Lieutenant Jervois amongst the number. The
proceeds are to be given to a local charity. All the streets, it being
Saturday night, were filled with dense crowds, and there was much
cheering. The enthusiasm of the people (which means of course,
their attachment to Great Britain, not to us personally) is most
hearty and thorough. The lime-light was turned on in front of
the house.

June 19^A.— Went to church at St. Peter's Cathedral at 10.30
A.M. It is a new building ; the choir only has been erected ; the
nave still remains incomplete. The choral service was very well
sung, and the hymns were heartily joined in by the people. Dr.
Dendy preached a capital sermon on " Be strong in the Lord."
Bishop Short was sitting in his chair by the altar, though he was
too feeble to take any part in the service. From the hill behind
the Cathedral there is a fine view of Adelaide and the park lands,
which are great open spaces that band the city round from the
increasing suburbs.

In the afternoon we drove to the Hospital for Incurables, where
there are about forty-eight patients ; we went all over it and saw all
in every ward. There were several poor boys with spinal aflfections,
one very bright little chap chatted with us a good while and gave
us some carving of his own doing. There were also some poor
paralysed old men who were sunning themselves in front. We
had a quiet dinner at Government House, and afterwards some
music and hymns with Lady and Miss Jervois in the drawing-
room.

JuTic 2Qth. — Left Adelaide at 7.30 A.M., driven by Mr. J. L. Stirling
in his four-in-hand drag ; Lieutenant Jervois and Mr. Thring (*' the
colonel " whose acquaintance we first made in the mail steamer,
who is a nephew of Sir Henry Thring, and a friend of the governor)
are going with us for our nearly 600 miles' overland journey firom
Adelaide to Melbourne. As we leave Adelaide we pass small groups
of working men going to their labour, who stop and cheer us. The
road leads away up Mount Lofty, past Glen Osmond at the foot
of the hills, four miles from Adelaide, where Sir Thomas Elder,
(who has since given £3,000 for the establishment of a South
Australian scholarship in connection with the Royal College of

VOL. T. II

482 CEUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

Music) has a curious collection of animals and birds. Hitherto
the road is the same as we went on Wednesday, the rich arable land
all inclosed with posts and rails or hedges, and under cultivation for
grain and fodder, for vineyards and gardens, and is thickset with
homesteads. From the summit, as the sun is shining brightly
amid the woods of red and blue gum-trees with other undergrowth,
we have our last look at Adelaide, with its twin towers and steeples
in the distance over the plains, and the gleaming line of sea behind
in the Gulf of St. Vincent. Vineyards in the foreground, olives
immediately beyond, orchards and gardens in the middle distance,
innumerable townships with their neat villas and gorgeous gardens
combine to produce a rich eflFect of peaceful prosperity. We pulled
up for breakfast at Crafers shortly before nine o'clock. From this
point begins the descent on the opposite side of the hills ; this is
more gradual than the ascent, and the woods here — now of white
and stringy bark gum-trees (a different kind to those on the western
side of the range) — are far thinner and more open. We drive straight
through Echunga (twenty-one miles from Adelaide) to Macclesfield,
where we change horses. Getting down for a few minutes, chatted
with a lot of little lads from the Hahndorf School close by, amongst
whom one who was a German and another who was a Jew made the
brightest jokes. The road led on from here over a country of
picturesque hills and valleys, over lots of land with dead gum-trees
on each side, most of which had been " rung," for the land was for
a short time cultivated for wheat, but the soil was found too poor,
and so is now again used for sheep farming. Thus on to Strath-
albyn, a Scotch settlement, where we again stopped to change
horses (thirty-five miles from Adelaide), just before noon. Here
the town councillors turned out, partly German and partly Scotch,
who took us into the Institute, where we drank their healths, and
then went and looked at the Strathalbyn and Qoolwa volunteers,
who were also all turned out ; they were strong, stalwart, well set-
up men in a serviceable workmanlike uniform. The State School
children also were drawn up alongside the road, and sang " God
save the Queen " and the " Song of Australia," which in South
Australia seems generally added to the National Anthem. From
here we drove on through a nearly level country of pasture and
wheat-fields, thirteen miles to Milang, on the western side of Lake
Alexandrina. Here ended our pleasant coach drive, at 1.30 P.M.,
forty-eight miles from Adelaide. -It was on Monday, November
11th, 1867, that the Duke of Edinburgh passed along this same

1981. ON LAKES ALEXANDRINA AND ALBERT. 483

road from Adelaide to Milang ; he left at 7 A.M., arrived at Echunga
at 11 A.M. for breakfast, and at Milang at 4 P.M.

Here Mr. Landseer (a relative of Sir Edwin's), the chief resident,
and a member of the Assembly, and owner of the steamers on the
lake, got us on to the tram, ran us down the jetty, where the
DeapoUch was waiting with steam up, on board of which they had
prepared lunch for us. Mr. Edmund Bowman, of Clare College
Cambridge, the eldest nephew of Mr. Bowman of Campbell House,
with whom we are going to stay, and Mr. Davenport, one of the
oldest colonists, and full of the most interesting conversation, met
us here, and as soon as the luggage had arrived we started and
proceeded down the inland sea or Lake Alexandrina. It is no-
where more than six or eight feet deep, and in parts not two,
although the surface of the water (thirty miles long by fifteen
broad) is so large that in many places the opposite coast is out of
sight. It opens to the sea by a narrow passage known as the Murray
Sea Mouth, as the lake is in reality an enlargement of the Murray
River, the waters of which flow into it at its north-east end. On
its south side are two other lakes, the Albert and the Coorong. The
waters are brackish and abound in fish, especially the Murray cod.
This exit of the Australian river system, that stretches far into
Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, and is worked by a
steam navigation for nearly 4,000 miles, has no navigable or proper
sea outlet. There are large flocks of wild birds, swan, bustard, grey
geese, duck, and pelican flying and screaming about, especially in
the narrow channel between the two lakes. It was quite dark when
we arrived at Point Macleay, the jetty by Campbell House, at
the southern end of Lake Albert, at 6.16 p.m. and were piloted in by
rockets and blue lights, and, as it is very shallow, landed in small
boats. Mr. and Mrs. Bowman gave us a most kind reception ; after
dinner went to bed pretty tired.

JuTie 21s^. — Breakfast at 7.30 A.M., and started immediately
afterwards, some riding and others driving, for the kangaroo hunt
In the first drive Eddy shot two kangaroo, a right and left shot ;
George shot three ; they are in such large numbers here that,
although their skins make capital fur, it is customary to cut off
only their thick tails, boil them down into excellent soup, and
leave their carcases on the ground. There were lots of dulachies,
which are smaller than a brown kangaroo, and are grey-haired and
red-headed ; these do not strike the tail on the ground in running as
the kangaroo appear to do. There are pits in the comers of this one

Il2

484 CEUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1S81.

paddock (which alone consists of 800 acres), into which the kangaroo
are driven on all sides by 200 black and many white men mounted ;
as they come bounding and leaping along they seem to have great
difficulty in turning, and never attempt to avoid any person pr
obstacle that may be in their way, but go straight for it, whatever it
may be, even if it ends in their being capsized. A great many of
course did not fall into the pit, the majority breaking back through
the line of beaters. There were two pits, however, into which a good
many jumped, and out of these one Joey was taken, and a little
baby kangaroo out of its mother s pouch. The kangaroo are very
destructive to the sheep-runs by eating the grass, and multiply at a
great rate, faster than they can be kept down. On this estate, which
consists of 50,000 acres, there were 4,000 kangaroo killed last year ;
each tail, which is worth about sixpence, is given to the keepers.
There were lots of wild turkey about, for it is a rough country all
round, though it makes an excellent sheep-run. It will carry two
sheep to the acre, and the land is worth about £2 an acre ; the best
land wiU fetch £3 ; on new land, however, each sheep has a rough
allowance of from one to three acres. The fleeces of the sheep we saw
to-day are worth about 5a. each ; on this estate and on another he
possesses Mr. Bowman has 280,000 sheep. With £25,000 capital a
man can buy land worth £75,000 by instalments, and in three years of
good luck pay up the whole and the interest on his money too ; but
there may come a bad year, in which he will lose pretty nearly all his
stock and have to begin again. But beyond all things else
sheep farming depends on the management : " one man mars and
another makes. " Sheep farming will yield on an average 20 per
cent., and in a good year a good deal more. The blacks make
capital shearers. The shearing-house is arranged with doors that
open into a sort of pen on the outside, with a separate division
in it for each shearer's sheep to go into, so that standing on the
outside you can tell at a glance who has sheared a sheep amiss. A
good shearer is able to shear one sheep in two minutes forty seconds,
and a first-rate shearer will turn out as many as 140 a day, but
that is far above the average. (Compare sheep farming in Uruguay,
p. 280—282, and on the Plate, p. 289.)

We had lunch in the bush — ^English park-like land, wooded with
gum-trees and she-oaks, no undergrowth, only rough grass — making
a fire and cooking our own meat. Mr. Bowman showed us how to
make bushman's tea, boiling the water first in the billy, putting the
tea on the top and then the sugar, and stirring it up with a stick.

1881. KANGAROO HUNTING. 485

After lunch we rode after more kangaroo on horseback. You can
ride a kangaroo down after about two miles in the open ; we got
twelve in this way. Using kangaroo hounds, about fifty or sixty
more were taken ; the dulachies and wallabies leap and bound with
their tails oflf the ground ; the kangaroo seems to use his as a lever,
though really no kangaroo, unless by accident, in uneven ground
when going fast, touches the ground with his tail. The tail balances
the animal. When standing or moving slowly in act of feeding,
the animal has the tail always touching the ground. The
AustraUan horses are very quick to turn, and when the bridle
is merely pressed against one side of the neck, or when the sUghtest
hint is given by the pressure of the knee, they are round in a second.
And it is the same in driving ; it was quite astonishing to watch
the way in which Mr. Bowman handled his pair, and whisked the
waggonette in and out and round about stumps and fallen trees
and all over the scrub, and coming home kept up abreast of the
galloping horsemen. Through the grass of the open there are
broad clearings cut for roads, which reminded one of the ** ridings"
in the woods at home ; this is done to check bush fires.

The sound of a lamb's bleat reminded us also of England, where
to-day is the longest day, though here it is the shortest, in the year.
The sky is leaden, and though there is no frost, there is a feel about
the clear air like a black winter. After dinner, which was at 6 P.M.,
we went to see a korrobboree, where the black fellows were en-
camped at a short distance from the house. There were two tribes
of these, and about 200 of them in all. They were painted with
white and black streaks across the face and chest, and got up in
correct style with skins and spears and boomerangs ; by the light
of the fires which were kindled in a circle around they looked
sufficiently hideous. The tribes danced alternately, and the watch-
words of their songs appeared to be half English, half native. A
great deal of the action of the dance consisted in striking the ground
at the same moment, so as to cause an echoing thud with their feet.
One of the repeated actions was to cause the muscles of the leg and
thigh to quiver simultaneously from toe to stomach in a most ex-
traordinary manner. At the end of each figure they brought
themselves up sharp with a strange deep-toned sound, half hurrah,
half grunt, " Wir — r — r — wuh 1 " They would then wheel right across
the inclosed space in line, and chattering as fast as they could, upon
the women who were sitting on the ground, and also singing a sort
of chorus of a few notes ; the line would then wheel back, break up

486 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

into twos and threes, brandishing their short sticks and clubs over
their heads, each man vociferating quickly to his mate, and then all
of a sudden these incoherent sounds would all coalesce together into
a chorus, and the band, again united, would cause the ground once
more to vibrate to the reiterated cadence of their stamp.

June 22nd, — Up at 4.30 A,M., and at 5.0 went by moon and star-
light, and the two planets Saturn and Mercuiy still in conjunction,
and with the rockets and blue lights to help us to find our way to
the end of the jetty, down to the Despatch steamer, to cross over to
Meningie on the opposite side of the lake ten miles off, but forty from
Milang at the north end of Lake Alexandrina. We arrived there at
daybreak about 7 A.M. In the grey morning light, and with all the
green weed through which the steamer pushed its way in the shallow
water to tlie landing place, it did not seem an over-cheerful place ;
but the few people that were about, and with whom we conversed
promiscuously, were hearty and sound-minded. They had nothing
to gain by pretending what they did not feel, and their professed
feelings were such as did honour to themselves. We got into a
large brake here that was waiting for us with four horses, and put
what luggage we had into a two-horsed buggy to follow. A good
metal road led off through the bush that stretched away on either
side, and consisted chiefly of mallee scrub and dwarf eucalyptus, for
some miles to the " Tam o' Shanter Inn," where Mr. McCallum had
prepared a capital hot breakfast of fresh fish and sausages, to
which, having been four hours in the open air, we did ample
justice. Then on through the bush again, and along down the
Coorong, where there was many a pretty view in the sunlight over
the smooth blue water to the sand dunes and hills beyond, that
shut out the sea from this long estuary. Then for miles over open
grass lands, with gum-trees here and there, either in clumps or
solitarywise, and past a shanty or other sign of struggling or strag-
gling settler. The road is in parts well metalled and as sound and
hard as any in England, and in others it merely runs over grass
and the black peaty soil churned up by many ruts and scored with
wheel-marks of passing traffic. The mail between Adelaide and Mel-
bourne runs overland this way, and the well-horsed coach passing twice
a day to and fro is the chief enlivener of the solitude which other-
wise, except for the bounding kangaroo and a few wild turkey,
seems perpetual. Mr. and Mrs. Bowman had kindly provided two
hand-boxes, which we carried in the carriage with us, filled with
fruit and more solid refreshments ; with these from time to time we

1881. ALONG THE COORONG. 487

still further enheaxtened the spirits of the travellers whom, however,
" the vivacious colonel " kept pretty well awake. In many places we
diive as through an open English park, only it is like a park that
is in Chancery, with the trees fallen and dead and the stumps pro-
truding here and there, and pools uncared for, and the grass growing
by their sides dank and lank. And then over a sandy beach,
McGrath's Flat, and through water for a mile or two that reaches
nearly over the wheels, but all is sunny and pleasant ; then on to
a wholly different soil, black and fertile, the fenced holdings
hereabouts showing that man had taken nature in hand, " as when
Adam delved and Eve span," to replenish the earth and subdue
it. A few flocks of sheep wandering at large and enjoying them-
selves by browsing as we had been doing, although on other
material, were the signs that warned us we were drawing near to
Coolatoo, where we pulled up for lunch at 4 p.m. It was a small
inn kept by a Dane of the name of Andersen, a native of Funen,
with whom we enjoyed a chat about Copenhagen, though it is
many years since he has been there. Here the mail stops daily
at 8 P.M. for supper, and here the two brawny mounted South
Australian police handed on their duties to another pair ; two of
this well-mounted and well-equipped, and in every respect, as far
as the eye can judge, highly satisfactory body of men conducted us
the whole way across from Adelaide. Soon after we left here the
stars came out again, and we let down the curtains of the brake
and had a snooze, but as the road was in parts very rough the
members of the party now and then had a real good bang one
against another. It was nearly 10 P.M. before we arrived at
Kingston at the end of our ninety-eight miles' drive from Meningie,
having made altogether 108 miles to-day, which is more than the
Baccliantes average for twenty-four hours. Here the inhabitants
had illuminated their houses, and some of them even came out in
a cavalcade to welcome us. After a good dinner at Peck's Hotel,
wild turkey and teal, we turned in and went to bed at 1 A.M.
without the luggage, which did not arrive until an hour later.
The buggy found the road very heavy, and had to put up with a
jibber or two. In olden days Mr. Peck had been Colonel Mount
Edgcombe's servant, and curiously had been with him when he
stayed at the old house at Sandringham.

June 23rrf. — Breakfasted, then off by special train at 8 A.M. We
had a glance first at the pier and jetty, where two steamers were
lying for wool. The district council turned out, and their chair-

488 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

man read a short address at the station. We shook him by the
hand, and told him we were much obliged for all his good wishes,
and we hoped he would live many years, and that every day of his
life would be as full of happiness to him as he said to-day was.
The dew was lying heavy on the ground, and there was a keen
frosty feeling in the air. The train sped along swiftly through scrub
and two or three wayside stations to Lucingdale where it stopped
to water, and all the school children turned out in a row along the
platform, which some one had spent pains and trouble to decorate
prettily with evergreens, and sang " God save the Queen." We
arrived at Narracoorte,the present end of the fifty-three miles railway
from Kingston, at 10.30 A.M., where we mounted Mr. Robertson's
private carriage and drove first to District Square, where both of us
planted a gum-tree. We were told that lots more were going to be
planted to-day to make a shady avenue round the square, and
evidently the people here are prepared to make a regular day of it
after we have gone on ; there are signs of preparation for feasting,
and the brass band with a very big drum have already begun their
manipulation. Then to Struan House, where we lunched with
Mr. Robertson ; before that we walked over his grounds and saw in
the park the small fenced inclosure within which his father rests,
who was one of the first settlers who came out here thirty-two
years ago ; and then to see the kangaroo hounds and his stud.
After lunch drove on through open park-like scenery to Penola,
(thirty-two miles from Narracoorte,) where we arrived about 4 P.M.
We are very sorry that we shall not be able to visit Mount Gambler,
but the time will not allow. At Penola there was something quite
new in the way of an Address read by Mr. McKenzie, chairman of
the district council ; it was inclosed in a silk case like a Union
Jack, which must have cost the school children who had worked
it much time and labour, and referred amongst other things to our
being in the navy. These again were drawn up by the side oi
the road and sang the National Anthem. There is also something
original about the decorations here, and it is touchiDg to see
strong hearty men as well as women really aflfected by the
remembrances of the old country which our coming seems to awaken
in their breasts; for of course we know well enough that all
this is not got up for us, but is merely a sign of their warm attach-
ment to England over the seas, and of all that name awakens
and recalls in every British breast. Drove on another four
miles to Yallum Park, the charming and comfortable residence of

1881. SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 489

Mr. Riddock surrounded by a very pretty garden. Mr. Scott is
staying here, and after dinner he and Mr. Riddock chatted away in
the billiard-room, and gave us a good insight into the ways and
manners of the country. The Scotch are the best and most
successful of emigrants. Half the most prominent among the
statesmen of the Canadian confederation, of Victoria, and Queens-
land, are born Scots, and all the great merchants of India are of
the same nation. Whether it is that the Scotch emigrants are for
the most part men of better education than those of other nations,
or whether the Scotchman owes his uniform success in every climate
to his perseverance or his shrewdness, the fact remains that wherever
abroad you come across a Scotchman you invariably find him
prosperous and respected in calculating contentment, and with
a strong-handed, open-hearted hospitality that no words can render
adequate thanks for. To come in contact only with such colonists
is morally health-giving. This was our last night on South
Australian soil, which, next to Western Australia, is the largest
British province in the world. The total area of the colony
stretching across the whole continent from the Southern to the
Indian Ocean on the north, comprises 903,690 square miles. Of
this. North Australia contains 523,620 square miles, South Australia
proper 380,070 square miles. Of South Australia 16,463 square
miles are sold and selected, and 191,892 more are leased from the
State : 141,257 square miles (or more a great deal than the whole
of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) are not
even applied for. As a matter of course, there is a great diversity
in its physical features, more so, perhaps, than in any other one
of the five provinces of Australia, magnificent plains of agricultural
land by Adelaide, and round the head of the two southern gulfs (the
wheat grown on which has obtained, both in England and at other
International Exhibitions in Europe, the gold medal, as being the
finest exhibited by any country in the world),^ mountain ranges
stretching for hundreds of miles, and often covered with large
timber, and other plains, beneath which is mineral wealth which

1 In 1884 the area harvested was 1,630,000 acres, the average yield three bushels
per acre: total production 5,161,666 bushels. The average for fourteen years has
been seven bushels per acre. South Australia is now, and must ever be, mainly
a pastoral country. In the neighbouring colony of Victoria the wheat yield is over
15,000,000 bushels ; very nearly an average of fifteen bushels per acre ; the whole of
Australasia produced 37,000,000, Canada 85,000,000, Great Britain and Irehind
82,000,000, the United States 357,000,000, and India 287,000,000 bushels in 1885.
India will eventually supplant all other countries in the European markets in regard
to wheat production.

490 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

only waits the employment of capital and labour to be developed.
For many years it was supposed that the interior of Australia was
a desert, but one result of the spirited enterprise of South Australia
in carrying the telegraph from Port Augusta in the south to Port
Darwin in the north, has been to prove that nearly the whole of
it is fiilly capable of carrying large herds of horses and cattle, and
where the first explorers died or else endured the greatest distress,
there are now squatters' homesteads with plenty and comfort. The
great success that has attended the sinking of artesian wells in
all this central region has made available for grazing vast tracts
that were considered worthless. North Australia, or as some have
proposed to call it Alexandraland, after the Princess of Wales, was
annexed to South Australia in 1863 by the Home Government.
The population is 8,000 ; but of these only 700 are European,
mostly located near Port Darwin, and the rest Chinamen, who have
flocked in. The territory is without parliamentary representation :
a resident, and staff of officials appointed from Adelaide, manage its
government. The pastoral land already leased in the northern
territory is 338,287 square miles ; what has been sold has fetched
at an average 4«. M, per acre. In the lease it is stipulated that at
the end of the third year after application there shall be on the
land two head of large cattle or ten head of sheep to the square
mile. The rainfall from November to March is sometimes
excessive — as you go inland the rainfall diminishes.

[South Australia was founded in the year 1836, and several of
the first colonists still remain alive to see the results of their
early labours. It was started on a totally different system to any
other colony. Mr. Wakefield was the originator of the system,
which embodied three principles : first, it was never to cost the
mother country anything ; secondly, there was to be no State
Church ; thirdly, that no convicts were ever to be admitted to its
shores. These three principles have been fully carried out. To
carry out the first principle the land was to be sold in portions
at a fair and reasonable value, and the proceeds were to be devoted
entirely to the introduction of labour from the mother country.

Though at first the system of immigration was carried on on a
somewhat improvident scale (people being brought out here at a
cost of sixteen pounds apiece to Adelaide, who then passed on to
the goldfields of Victoria, so that this colony reaped nothing for its
outlay), and though much distress had to be encountered by the
pioneers who fmnded Adelaide, yet this principle of doing all

1881. SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 491

they can to obtain further population from England has never
been lost sight of, and this province has probably spent larger
sums than any other in aiding emigration from Ghreat Britain.
A very large supply of labour is required to carry out the great
public works which are in progress, and private enterprise is
much cramped and fettered by the scarcity of man-power. Wages
are as high as in any of the colonies, generally at the least fifty
per cent, higher than they are in England, and in the present
state of this colony (which contains only 300,000 people, or about
the population of Sheffield, in a country seven times as large as the
whole of Great Britain and Ireland), thousands of working men
might be introduced and find employment without the slightest
danger of reducing the price of labour. The South Australian
Government advertised in the English papers of recent date
that perfectly free passages would be given to female domestic
servants of good character, and to children under twelve years of
age, and girls accompanying their parents. Mechanics, navvies,
agricultural labourers, and copper-miners were eligible at the
assisted rates. Application was necessary to the Agent-General
and Emigration Agent for South Australia.

The whole land of the colony when surveyed, has, since 1877,
been divided into two classes, that for townships and that for
agricultural purposes. The money obtained by sale is devoted
not only to bringing out labour, but also to the construction of
roads and other public works. Road making, in fact, seems to
be a ^ecialit^ of South Australia, each district, after raising a
rate of a shilling in the pound on the value of the property in
it, is helped by the grant of an equal amount, pound for pound,
from the public treasury, and now there are more than 800 miles
of the best macadamized roads and 3,000 miles of fairly good
road in South Australia radiating from Adelaide. Very nearly
£2,000,000 have been spent on these roads, and now railways are
being constructed with equal enterprise.

All unsold lands after survey have a fixed value put upon them
by the Commissioner of Crown Lands, not less than a pound an
acre. When any lands are declared open for selection by pro-
clamation in the Government Oazette at a fixed price, a day is
appointed for receiving application, and any portion not previously
selected or sold may be chosen by any one so long as the block
does not exceed, in the aggregate, 640 acres, or one square mile ;
on application he must pay down a deposit of ten per cent, of the

492 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

fixed price. At the end of three years he will have to pay another
ten per cent. If, at the end of six years he is not prepared to pay
the whole of the purchase-money, he may pay half of it then and
defer payment for another four years. Such lands as have neither
heen selected nor sold may, at tbe end of five years after the above
proclamation, be offered for sale in blocks of not more than 3,000
acres on lease for ten years, at an annual rental of sixpence an
acre, with a right of purchase at any time during lease at one
pound an acre. A selector must reside nine months out of the
twelve on his land, either personally or by substitute ; in the first
case, at the end of five years, by paying up the rest of his purchase-
money, he may get his freehold, in the latter at the end of six
years. Before the end of the second year he must have improved the
land to the extent of five shillings an acre ; before the end of the
third year seven-and-sixpence an acre ; before the end of the fourth
year ten shillings an acre ; and during each year he must plough
and have under cultivation at least one-fifth of the land. The
land is cheap, the terms of payment are easy, and the amount of
cultivation required is not more than any man, intending to farm,
woidd attempt if the matter were left to his own option. It has
been found, however, that 640 acres is not enough to enable a man
to farm profitably by uniting stock keeping with wheat growing, and
it is proposed to enlarge the area which one man may hold to 1,000
acres. Some capitalists have purchased magnificent esta.tes from
40 to 100,000 acres, and established large model farms upon them.

In the whole of South Australia proper there are 6,804,377 sheep
and 294,410 cattle. Taking one head of cattle as equal to six sheep,
this would be equivalent to 8,570,837 sheep (about half as many
as in the whole of Great Britain) on the 380,000 square miles of
the colony, V.c. one sheep to twenty- eight acres, or twenty-three
per square mile. In New South Wales there are 167 head to the
square mile, i.e. 52,000,000, or nearly eight times as many stock to
the square mile as in South Australia. This colony actually im-
ports large quantities of beef and mutton and butter to feed her
population; its resources are not utilized because the upland
requires more than three years' leases to develop it properly, and
an expenditure of about £50 a square mile to do it. Security
of tenure and twenty-one years' leases are required to induce
capitalists to take them up and properly develop the land.]

June 2ith, Midsummeo' Day. — Breakfast at 7 A.M., then started
at 8 A.M. in a new Cobb's coach which had been sent up from

1881. WE ENTER VICTORIA. 493

Hamilton, the four-in-hand being driven by " Tom Cawker." The
coach held four comfortably inside, and the box-seat took us both
alongside the driver, as our party is six we just fit ; the " snack box "
is under the care of the "Colonel," and the luggage comes behind
in a buggy. The first four miles is back to Penola, there we pass
the mail and drive through the bush, which is just the same park-
like country as yesterday, only the road is now rougher and broader;
for large breadths of bush and grass are left unfenced on either
side to allow of the flocks grazing as they travel along from station
to station. Here and there are trees lying just as they have fallen
all across and over it ; round them the tract twists and twines, and
even at night the coach is able to avoid these stumps and stocks,
for it carries five lamps in front, one on top and two each side,
with very large reflectors, which throw the light forward all over
the road and create quite an illumination, so that everything can
be seen most distinctly. We arrived at the halfway-house between
Penola and Casterton, and just over the border of Victoria, at
11.30 A.M. Here we changed horses and bade adieu to our South
Australian mounted troopers, who took back a telegram to forward
from Penola to Sir William Jervois thanking him for all the
arrangements made thus far. Two of the Victorian mounted
police joined us here, and on we went. About four miles outside
Casterton a number of the Victorians came out on horseback to
welcome us over the border, and brought spare horses for us to
ride on into the town, with kindly foresight thinking we should
thus like to stretch our legs a bit. Accordingly, three of us left
the coach and mounted ; one of us was on a race-horse that
happened to be in training, a splendid animal who went over the
logs by the side of the road in fine style. At the top of the hill
going down into Casterton the Oddfellows all came out in proces-
sion with their banners and a band to play us into the town. This
certainly enlivened the proceedings in more ways than one, for it
was impossible amid their strains and shoutings to keep our horses
at a foot pace or march with them, therefore those on horseback
went ahead, while the Oddfellows conducted the coach and its
remaining occupants with all becoming dignity under the triumphal
arches to the hotel, forty-four miles from Valium, where a capital
lunch was already laid out, for which we were quite ready. A
pretty little child, apparently impromptu, came toddling in while
we were sitting at table and went round lisping in a low crooning
song, " Welcome to Victoria, welcome to Victoria." After lunch

494 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

we started at 2.15 P.M. for Coleraine over a splendid country, the
"garden of Victoria" (which we are told will carry ten sheep to
the acre), and over rolling downs reminding us of Wiltshire, and
with lovely views of the distant country now in its mid-winter green
and looking at its best. At Coleraine at 4.20 P.M. we changed
horses, during which operation we made the acquaintance of several
of the chief inhabitants of the district and heard the children of
the state school sing the Victorian National Anthem. The words
are simple enough, and the music and voices sounded very cheerily.

Hurmh for dear Victoria,

Her woods and valleys green ;
Harrah for dear Australia ;

Hurrah for fingland's Queen.

Good ships be on her waters —

Firm friends upon her shores ;
Peace, peace upon her borders,

And plenty in her stores.

Right joyously we're singing ;

We're glad to make it known
That we love the land we live in,

And the Queen upon the throne.

Then hurrah for dear Victoria,

And may we still be seen
True to our own dear country,

And loyal to our Queen.

We arrived at Wannon or Redruth just before dusk, and were
able to run across the fields and have a look at the falls while they
were changing horses : then on again to Hamilton, forty miles
from Casterton, and the end of our splendid eighty miles drive to-
day. As we approach Hamilton many bonfires are lit by the side
of the road and a constant succession of rockets are let off, while
crowds of people, some in wagonettes and others on horseback,
come out to meet the coach. We drive up to the hotel, the
whole front of which is brilliantly illuminated with gas and
Chinese lanterns, at 7 P.M. Here all across the square the people
are standing so thickly that we can only at a very slow pace
approach the house under arches covered with evergreens and
flags, and between the lines of the fire brigade, all of whom are
carrying lighted torches. Captain Le Patourel, the (Jovernor s
A.D.C., is here to meet us, and has prepared dinner. But first
we go out on the balcony in front of the hotel where there is a
vast amount of cheering for the Queen ; the Mayor then explained
to the people that we thanked them heartily for their good-will
to England, and that as we were rather tired with our long

1881. FROM THE FRONTIER TO MELBOURNE. 495

overland journey we wished them all " good night," so after more
cheering we went inside and after dinner enjoyed looking over
the letters and mails from England which Captain Le Fatourel had
brought up from Melbourne.

June 25th. — The morning opened wet and drizzly ; we left by
special train soon after 8 A.M. for our 230 miles run into Melbourne.
There were two splendid saloon carriages which had never been
used before. They had been built and decorated in anticipation
of the visit of the Prince of Wales to Victoria for the Melbourne
Exhibition last year. In these (with various gentlemen connected
with the railway department) we travel down ; our first stop was
at Ararat, at 10.15, where, while they were watering the engine we
left the train and drove round the town. The singing of the
British National Anthem on our return (they had a harmonium on
the platform, and the children divided — the boys on one side of the
station and the girls on the other — ) was the best we have heard
anywhere. There was a great crowd and they were very enthu-
siastic. Then on to Ballarat where at 1.15 we lunched with the
Mayor in the station. Started again, and only once more pulled up,
at Geelong, where there was a jolly English peal of bells in the square
church tower by the station, which sounded very home-like as they
rang. We arrived at Melbourne at 4.20 P.M. Mr. Berry, the grey-
haired Prime Minister, with the rest of his Cabinet met us on the
platform. After being introduced to each of these we drove
straight away up Collins and Swanston Streets to Government
House, right through the city; the breadth of the streets and the
magnificence of the public buildings quite surprised us. Both
sides of the street were lined with people who all seem very
pleased and kept cheering away as hard as they could. Our first
impression is that the buildings of the town are of darker hue
and blacker than those in Adelaide, though much huger. We saw
Lord and Lady Normanby and the Admiral, and then drove down
to Sandridge Town Pier, from which we went off in the steam
pinnace to the Bacchante at 6 P.M. She arrived from Albany on
the 18th, and has already unshipped her rudder which has gone
ashore to be properly mended by the Tyne Foundry Company.
The price of the contract is £300, and the work is to be com-
pleted in twenty days. We have been away from the ship just
fifteen days and have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We find it
colder here than at Adelaide ; though it has been a bright sunny
winter s day.

496

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1861.

IN HOBSON'S BAY, MELBOURNE.

Date.

Wind.

Tbmpkratdrk.

Sea.

Air.

Koon.

6 p.m.

Noon.

6 PH.

June

26S.

Calm

N. 1-4

i 45

N.W. 4-7

N.W. 6-8 -6

! 45

30
July

N.W. 47-6

' 48

N.W. 8 -5 -3

1 48

N.W. 3

3S.

N.W. 2-6

N.W. to N. 6 to 4

N. to N.W. 2-3

N. 3-7

, 50

N. to N.W. and W. 3-2 1

Variable 1

June 26th, — A quiet Sunday on board ; a fine day but rather cold ;
usual services on the main deck. There are two little kangaroos
that have just come on board, quite tame, from Mr. Bowman's,
but we are afraid they will scarcely live.

June 27th. — On board all day but found it very cold at school.
At half-past four went ashore with the Captain and John to Sand-
ridge Town Pier and then drove up to Government House where
we dined with Lord and Lady Normanby.

June 2Sth, — In the forenoon after breakfast we went with the
Governor to the Mint, where Mr. Delves Broughton met us, and
showed us all the processes by which the gold is melted and rolled
and coined. We each coined a piece ourselves which they after-
wards gave us to put on our watch-chains as souvenirs. We also
saw the new process of getting the silver away from the ore. The
whole thing was very interesting ; the machinery is perfectly new
and is better than that in the Mint in England ; the reason being,
we were told, that as it has been long under contemplation to move
the Mint from Tower Hill to the Thames Embankment, it has not
been thought worth while to do more than keep the old machinery
there in fair working order, and so the adoption of an improved
system has been deferred until it is established in its new home on
the Thames Embankment. The present Mint on Tower Hill was
transferred thither from the Tower of London in 1810. There
are branch Mints at Melbourne, at Sydney, at Bombay, and at

1881. ABOUT IN MELBOURNE. 497

Calcutta. The London Mint coins the Canadian dollars and the
West Indian nickel pence. The total value of the gold coinage
made in the last ten years at the London Mint is 32,479,000^.
The total British gold coinage in circulation in Great Britain is
100,000,000/. The Melbourne Mint was built in 1872. This
year three million sovereigns have been poined in it; or sixteen
millions in less than ten years, nearly half the quantity coined in
the same time in the London Mint. They are identical in every
respect with those issued in London, with the exception of a small
M, which is added as a distinguishing mark.^

After lunch had a walk in the town; the streets strike us as
being very broad (99 feet) ; on each side of most of them trees are
planted, to mitigate the heat and dust of summer. Streams of
water in stone channels (like those at Cambridge) run along the
sides ; a little wooden bridge carries the foot traffic over them at
eaoh crossing. The streets run at right angles to each other, and
every alternate one running east or west is a narrower or smaller
one, and bears the same name as its wider neighbour only with the
prefix of *' Little." Of those that run north and south, Elizabeth
Street, full of banks and insurance offices, runs in the valley be-
tween the two principal hills or parallel ridges over which Melbourne
has spread. This valley slopes gently northwards and upward
from the quays of the Yarra-Yarra. In this central thorough-
fare are the Town Hall, the Cathedral, the Museum, the Library,
and the Picture Gallery. Other parallel streets to this are those
called after various Australian notabilities, Swanston, Stephen,
Spring, Lord John Russell, and Spencer. Of those that intersect
them, and which run from east to west, right across from the
western heights to the eastern, the chief are Flinders (with its
huge warehouses), Collins (which is the Bond Street of the place),
and Bourke (which is its Oxford Street), each a mile and a half
long, with open prospect from end to end. The last terminates high
above the valley in front of the Houses of Parliament, still in
course of erection, and starts at its western end from the railway
station, which occupies the oldest site in Melbourne. At the in-
tersection of Collins and Russell Streets is a colossal bronze group
of statuary on a granite pedestal, commemorating the explorers
Burke and Wills. The city is just as old as the Queen's reign ;
it was founded in 1837 and called after Lord Melbourne, the

^ The Sydney branch of the Royal Mint waa opened in 1855. From that date to
1883 forty -seven millions of sovereigns and two millions of half-sovereigns have been
coined at it.

VOL. I. K K

498 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

premier at the Queen's accession in the same year ; it was then
a few wooden huts and a wooden church with a bell suspended from
a tree. It is now one of the two largest cities in the world south
of the Equator, the other being Buenos Aires in South America,
and is seventh city for size in the British Empire. Its population
(350,000 persons) is now — although fifty years ago the whole shore
of Victoria was unknown to Europeans — very nearly the same as
that of Manchester ; the rateable value of the property in the city
is now over ten millions. Few, if any, cities have ever attained so
great a size with such rapidity ; old colonists remember cows tied
up to the trees where the Town Hall now stands ; land then that
was thought dear at 1/. an acre now realises 500/. per square foot,
and plots which then were bought for 20/. have been sold for
70,000/.^ The parks, squares, and gardens are so numerous that
with only one-thirteenth of the population of London it occupies
very nearly half as great an area. Ten miles by seven is its area,
and into it have congregated one quarter of the population of
Victoria, a country nearly as large as Great Britain, just in the
same way as into London are packed one-fifth of the inhabitants
of England ; and as the population of London exceeds that of the
whole of Scotland so that of Melbourne exceeds that of the whole
of South Australia. Whether, however, it be for the real advantage
of either city thus to draw together to itself so large a proportion
of the population may be doubtful. The rapidity of its growth
and development is a striking proof of what the enterprise of man
and the power of wealth can effect even in one generation. Its
edifices, under a sky usually clear blue (at midday Egyptian, in the
evening Mediterranean), rival in appearance those of the older
capitals of Europe ; the magnificent pile of the Post Office ; the
gigantic Treasury, which, when finished will be larger than our own
in London ; the University ; the Parliament Houses ; the Union
and Melbourne clubs ; the City Hall; the Wool Exchange ; the via-
ducts upon the Government Bailroad lines — all are Cyclopean in
their architecture, all seem built as if to last for ever ; they are
chiefly constructed of blue stone and in classic style, and therefore
are almost as imperishable as the granite buildings of Edinburgh.^

' A sailor not long ago walked into one of the finest banks in Collins Street, and
both demanded and obtained 50,000/. for the site, a yoacher for which at 87/. he had
in his pocket

' With one or two exceptions the public buildings are all constructed of stone im-
ported from Tasmania, Sydney, or England. The local stone is volcanic, exceedingly
nard, and very dark in colour, resembling the whinstone of Scotland,

1881. ABOUT IN MELBOURNE. 499

Captain Lonsdale in H.M.S. Rattlesnake arrived in 1836 in Port
Phillip. The first settlers had previously come from Launceston in
Tasmania, and within five days of their arrival the plough had
passed through the soil and wheat was sown ; five years did not pass
before the new settlement asked to be separated from New South
Wales. From 1842 to 1850 the agitation for independence con-
tinued, but was brought to a head when in 1849 a convict ship
arrived in Hobson'a Bay with a batch of felons. The colonists,
headed by Sir William Stawell, the present chief justice, pro-
tested that they had never received convicts, and were prepared to
undergo any extremity rather than do so now. The Colonial Office
gave way; and in 1851 at the age of fifteen years the young colony
became the mistress of her own destinies ; the same year gold was
discovered and her fortune was secured. In wheat growing Victoria
could not have competed with Adelaide, nor in producing wool
with New South Wales, on account of the smallness of her com-
parative extent : it was the gold that made her, that brought the
bone and muscle and sinew that have built up so rapidly her
prosperity ; no single British colony has ever enjoyed prosperity
so rapid and so great as that which has fallen to Victoria.

We passed the open space on which the new cathedral of St.
Paul's is being built, from designs by Mr. Butterfield, for Bishop
Moorhouse, at the corner of Swanston and Flinders Streets. The
site is rather confined, and the design is the result of a series of
alterations and compromises. Christians of many denominations
in the colony have contributed to raise this as a monument to him
who is to-day the greatest spiritual force in Australia. " He has
commended himself to an energetic and ambitious society by energy,
boldness, and indefatigable labour which match their own ; and he
has shown the less common qualities of independence of mind,
of patience, of largeness of thought and sympathy, and of the
refinement which comes from a high standard both of intellect and
religion." AB.C, an anonymous Presbyterian, subscribed 5fl00L,
and his appeal alone produced in 1881 25,000/. more from others.
Sir William Clarke has given 10,000/., and his brother Joseph
6,000/. : or 1,000/. a year for six years. It is to cost over 100,000/.,
will hold nearly 2,000 people, and will be 273 feet long. (For Truro
Cathedral about 80,000/. have been collected in England.) The
central tower will be 156 feet high, with a lofty spire. On the
high ground at the top of Bourke and Collins Streets are the new
Public Offices, a handsome and substantial block (resembling the

K K 2

500 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

Government Buildings at Whitehall) and the Houses of Parliament,
not yet completed.

[In the effort to become a prosperous manufacturing country
Victoria has declared war against every natural gift with which she
is blessed by taxing every implement necessary for the production
of wealth. The protective policy of the colony not only imposes
a heavy tax upon its inhabitants, but the main arguments advanced
for it in a young country — its fostering power in the case of manu-
factures and the comfort given by high wages to the working
classes — are in this instance entirely fallacious. For in some
of the most protected industries it is necessary to forge foreign
trademarks in order to sell Victorian goods in competition against
heavily-taxed importations. In others the protected manufacturers
prefer to export their goods not made up to the neighbouring
colony of New South Wales, and re-import them, paying the taxes.
In others the wages of operatives have dropped heavily since
the complete carrying-out of the tariflf system. Still, as in nearly
every country where there is manhood suffrage the majority of the
voters are protectionists. In Australia the Liberal Governments
are more protectionist than the Conservative, though neither party,
except in the great colony of New South Wales, are able to legislate
on free-trade principles. Canada, the United States, France, and
Germany, are all examples of more extended suffrage than prevails
in England, and of ultra-protectionist legislation. Protection always
seems to promise the labourer high wages, and these have ever
morf* attraction to him than the idea of cheap bread. Whether the
process enriches the country as a whole is not the question for
him. It can be shown, no doubt, that trade suffers and that wealth
and population do not accumulate as fast as they might under free
trade. But right in front of the working man's eyes is the fact,
or the apparent fact, that a lot of factories are open because pro-
tection is the policy of the colony, and that they would almost
certainly be closed if a free-trade system were adopted. It is very
hard to overcome this conviction by statistics alone. The artisan
firmly believes that foreign imports will undersell his employer and
abolish his pay-day, while the mass of the people stoutly declare
that they would rather keep their fellow-countrymen employed
than reduce their household expenses. The raining population
too — consumers themselves of most staple articles, and only
producers of an exported article — are strongly protectionist. The
leason is that the demand for labour in the protected factories at

1881. PROTECTION IN VICTORIA. 501

Melbourne, Ballarat, and Geelong reduces the competition of labour
at the mines. There is a personage called ** the legitimate miner "
(he has a vote too) who has the strongest objection to the immi-
gration of new-comers, lest his wages should be reduced. It
is true that the " legitimate miner," his short hours of work, and
the operations of his trade union are gradually making gold-mining
unprofitable; but in the meantime the immigrant who might
bring down wages finds employment in Melbourne factories, and so
the " legitimate miner " votes for protection with steady enthusiasm.
Besides all this, there is a strong and growing opinion here that a
free-trade policy is an anti-national policy. The cosmopolitan plati-
tudes of the Sydney people declining to come into the Australian
federation give a powerful argument to the protectionists here,
who urge that free trade saps the national spirit and renders
patriotism, and the ambition to make Australasia a great country,
subservient to the interests of importers and exporters. Free trade
is steadily losing ground in Australia ; and the action of New South
Wales — the free-trade colony — discourages and indeed closes the
lips of free-traders in Victoria, who desire federation most heartily
and yet believe in the absolute necessity for extending Australian
dominion in the Pacific. In South Australia — a colony which has
hitherto steadily refused to imitate the protectionist policy of Victoria
— a motion has been carried in the House of Assembly instructing
the Government to give out a large contract for iron piping to
an Adelaide firm, although the pipes could be got in England
for 26,000i. less than the tender of the " native " manufacturer.
Eecently also the Victorian House of Assembly very nearly passed
a resolution forbidding the Melbourne Harbour Trust to import
any articles " which could be manufactured in the colony.'* The
Harbour Trust is now about to go into manufacturing on its own
account, driven to this unremunerative proceeding by the pressure
of protectionist opinion.

Of course the fact that Victoria, the protectionist colony, has
taken the lead in attempting to carve out a national policy for
Australia, while New South Wales hangs back, is very poor evidence
of the deteriorating and denationalising eflFect of Cobdenism. It,
however, helps to make all Cobden's views unpopular here. The
real strength of protection, as every one knows, lies in the much
simpler fact that the working man has got the voting power, and that
he is determined to use it in order to maintain high wages. Mean-
while Victoria, though noted for the eagerness with which her people

502 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

seek protection, is only one-thirty-fourth part of Australia.
Possessed herself of little coal, she is attempting artificially to
create an industry which, owing to this sad lack of fuel, must
languish from the moment it is let alone. Sydney coal sells at
thirty shillings a ton in Melbourne; in New South Wales, at
Newcastle, it is seven shillings.]

The Roman Catholics are building a still vaster cathedral, and
in a still more prominent position on the high ground amidst
the evergreen gardens on the north-east of the city. For this
the local volcanic stone is used, with white stone mullions and
dressings. The Wesleyans and the Scotch Church, as well as
other Christian bodies, have already completed very fine churches
of brown freestone, with lofty spires and towers.^ Amongst the
stores which we went into was that of Cole's, the bookseller, where
all the books were arranged in order and sorted according to their
different subjects, all those on history being in one portion of the
premises with their various subdivisions, the novels in another under
their various subdivisions, French, German, English, adventure; and
so on. Here, as in the other colonies, we were much struck by the
number of English-printed and published works in circulation.
Thanks to copyright, the colonies are the best market for the
English author ; it is only nearer home in Europe that he is de-
prived of his due wage and that his fellow-countrymen prefer to
buy him cheaply abroad in the Tauchnitz form. After this
we walked back across the Yarra bridge and up the long dusty
road out to Government House. Asking * How about the drains ? '
learnt there were none. There are no underground sewers: the
surface drains, which are continually being scoured by running
water are a speciality of Melbourne, and run into the Yarra, a

^ The religious census of Victoria, in which every one has been at libertv to enter
his religion iu any manner which best pleased his fancy, is a very curious document.
Of 862,346 persons very nearly 800,000 (i.e. 299,542) return themselves as belonging
to the Church of England, nearly 200,000 (more exactly, 197,157) as Roman Catholics,
considerably over 100,000 as Presbyterians of some shade or other, and nearly the
same number as Methodists of some shade or other ; while of other Protestant sects
none much exceed 20,000— about the number of Baptists— the Independents falling
in numbers slightly below the Baptists. Eleven thousand (chiefly Chinese) are
returned as Pagans. But the curious thing is the number of fancy religious. There
is one Borrowite, one Millerite, one Walkerite, one Colensoite, one who returns him-
self as a " Silent Admirer," one as a Theosophist, and five who belong to the ** Church
of Eli Sands." There are twenty who declare that they have "No Church at present,
no creed," three who call themselves "Saved sinners," one who is a "believer in
parts of the Bible," two who caU themselves "neutrals," and three who state their
religion as " £ «. rf," Probably a much greater number might have declared them-
selves adherents of these last two creeds had candour been as gi-eat as Victorian
liberty.

1881. THE VICTORIAN NAVAL FORCE. 503

narrow shallow stream. The Yan Yean water is brought into
Melbourne from a distance of about twenty miles, and is said to be
inexhaustible, and is laid on to every house in the town and
suburbs. All night-soil is removed from the houses at least once
a week, and placed on waste ground outside the city, or sold to the
market gardeners. The sanitary and financial result's of this
system are said to be very successful. The vegetables are grown
chiefly by Chinese, who are well versed in this use of sewage ;
and thus, we were told, Melbourne, with its quarter of a million
inhabitants, is kept clean and wholesome, without any system of
underground drainage.

Government House reminds us in its outward appearance of
the Queen's house at Osborne. It is built in the same style and
with a square tower 140 feet high, although all the interior arrange-
ments are on a far more extensive scale ; the ballroom is, for
example, eighteen feet longer than the state ball-room at Buck-
ingham Palace. As the building stands on high ground it is
conspicuous from nearly every part of the city.

To-day being the anniversary of the coronation of the Queen the
vessels of the squadron '' dressed ship " this morning, as did also the
Victorian wooden frigate Nelson (2,780 tons, 500 horse-power) and
the Victorian ironclad turret-monitor, Cerberus, 3,480 tons, 1,660
horse-power, twin screw, built on the Tyne in 1872 for the defence
of Melbourne. Salutes were fired at noon by all the ships of the
squadron as well as those of the colony and by the battery on shore.

[The Cerberus is armed with four 18-ton guns and 4. Norden-
feldt machine guns; the Nelson, with 18 sixty-four pounders, and
with 12 thirty-two pounders. Besides these two vessels the
Victorian navy consists of two twin screw steel gunboats built by
Sir W. Armstrong, at Newcastle — the Victoria, of 530 tons, with
one 25-ton gun, and two Nordenfeldts, and the Albert, of 350 tons,
with one 11^-ton gun, one 3-ton, and two Nordenfeldts (both these
were volunteered by the Victorian Government for service at
Suakim, where they called in on their passage out down the Bed
Sea), of one first-class torpedo boat, the Childers, of 60 tons and
20-knot speed, and two second-class torpedo boats, the Nepean and
the Lonsdale. The whole navaJ armament of the colony is to consist
of thirteen war vessels, including four cruisers. The permanent
naval force is under the command of a captain of the Royal Navy
(lent by the Admiralty, but paid by the colony) and a small staff
of bflScers : the whole force is over 400 men. They, as well as

504 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

the " Naval Reserve " are thoroughly well drilled on board the
Cerberus and the Nelson, and in gun and field exercise ashore.
The navy of Now South Wales consists of the Wolverine, wooden
corvette, 2,540 tons, 400 horse-power. (This vessel was presented
in 1882 for the use of the Naval Brigade — over 300 strong — of
that colony.) Her aimament consists of 17 sixty-four pounders.
Queensland possesses two double screw gunboats, the Palumah
and Gayundah, each of 450 tons, and carrying one 12-ton gun
forward and one 4-ton gun aft, and four Nordenfeldts. South
Australia possesses the Protector, a twin screw steel cruiser of 920
tons built like the gunboats by Sir W. Armstrong, and Tasmania
a torpedo boat. The national flag, however, is not allowed by the
British Government to be carried by any ships of the colonial
forces : the white ensign is reserved by the Imperial Government
for the use of the Royal Navy and the Yacht Club at Cowes.
Rightly or wrongly, there is a strong feeling on this point in
Australia : at present the ships carry the blue ensign, with a repre-
sentation of the constellation of the Southern Cross in the fly ; all
they ask is the same privilege that is granted to amateur yachts-
men in England, the use of the naval white ensign with the red
cross of St. George. It is felt also on all hands that these various
and separate attempts of the individual colonies to establish seven
independent little navies are only stepping-stones to some further
national effort. There are difficulties connected with the question
of their union for purposes of defence, as there are with all other
questions. And there seem to be three solutions put forward out
here. First, there is the party of local federal defence. Their
doctrine is that on shore and afloat the colonies should find their
own defence, merely getting such help from England in the way of
officers and munitions as may be necessary to supplement colonial
deficiencies. The strongest advocates for this policy are also the
strongest advocates for immediate local federation. They see very
clearly that for Australia to go in at once for a common defence-
union would be something tangible to aim at, that it would caiTy
in its wake a central executive and central treasury, and therefore,
probably, some common system of taxation, and would precipitate
the federal movement. Moreover, a federal army and navy would
arm the central executive and would make secession as impossible
in Australia as it has proved to be in America.

The second party holds the view that the best method, for the
present at least, would be for the colonies to undertake all the

1881. AUSTRALIAN NAVAL DEFENCE. 605

land defence, leaving to the mother-country all naval defence, each
colony paying the whole cost of the former and contributing a fair
share to the latter. Whether the coast patrol, for which at least
two vessels would be wanted, should form part of the Local or the
Imperial naval force is an open question. It is obvious, too, that
the defence of naval arsenals like Hobson's Bay and Sydney is a
matter of supreme importance to the Imperial navy, which wants
to feel perfectly sure that it has an invulnerable port of refuge to.
fall back upon. But there might arise differences of opinion
between the naval and colonial authorities as to whether enough
was being done to make this or that port absolutely secure, and
there would be room, under this arrangement, for a conflict of
authority on minor questions.

The third party consists of those who attach more weight to
Imperial than to local federation. They hold that there ought to
be no distinction between a colonial army and an Imperial army,
that there ought to be only one Imperial army and one Imperial
navy ; that the colonies should have just the same free entrance
into both services as the youths of the mother country have ; that
there should be a uniform system of Imperial defence under one
central management and responsibility, and that these colonies
should pay a fairly-assessed contribution towards the cost of such
defence. Ultimately this common-sense and practical view will
in all probability prevail. Each colony will undertake its own
harbour defence, but the seagoing defences will be left entirely
in the hands of the Imperial Government. The same thing will
happen in England as has happened here. There the Admiralty have
officially disclaimed any responsibility for the defence of the mari-
time towns, such as Brighton or Liverpool, who have been warned
that they must rely for safety exclusively on their powers of local
defence: "the burden entailed by the protection of private interests
and property by the navy would be greater than the country
would be likely to accept." London, Liverpool, and Glasgow are
not less patriotic and certainly are richer than Sydney and Mel-
bourne — (the annual exports and imports of the first two cities
alone amount to one million more than the value of all the sea-
borne commerce of France, and the commerce of either port is
more than double the sea-borne commerce of Bussia) — and
each of them raise and maintain brigades of naval volunteers ;
in time their example will be followed, and torpedo volunteer
corps be set on foot in every part of the kingdom. Such

606 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

efforts will contribute to "local defence" in Great Britain in the
game way as these colonial efforts supplement the means of defence
belonging to the Royal Navy in Australian waters. But as the
Englishman would be loathe, because of the existence of naval vol-
unteers, to give up his share in the British Navy, " whereon under
the good Providence of God the wealth, safety, and strength of the
kingdom chiefly depend" (29 & 30 Vict. cap. 109), so also is the
Australian. If, however, the colonies are to be taxed for Imperial
defence they must have a voice in Imperial expense ; difficulties
in the way of granting them that are only met by grasping the
broad principle, that the Australian self-governing colonies are as
much an organic part of the Empire as Great Britain herself.]

June 29th. — Breakfast early and off at eight with Lord Normanby,
who is taking the Admii-al and the captains and twenty-three
officers of the squadron up to Ballarat. There was a special train
from Spencer Street Station, which, starting at 9 A.M., ran us over
the hundred miles between Ballarat and Melbourne in about three
hours. Near Geelong we passed through an estate of over 70,000
acres in extent, all belonging to one family, early settlers in
Victoria ; it has increased in value till it is worth now more than
10/. per acre, through the rapid development of the colony. At
Geelong itself, while the engine was being reversed, we got out
and walked about the platform. There were several hundred
persons standing at the end of the station, who cheered when they
saw the Governor and the AdmiraC After starting we did not stop
again till we arrived at Ballarat at 12.20. The run was over the
same fertile country we had passed through on Saturday : an end-
less stretch of meadow-land, hedgeless and almost treeless, yet
divided into large rectangular fields by strong bar fences about four
feet high. Sometimes these fences are varied with alternate lines
of wood and wire, sometimes they are of wire alone ; but the wooden
bar fence is the great characteristic of the country. The Australian
horse is a good timber jumper; though these fences would be awk-
ward to ride at. A fence of five or six wires costs about 50/. a mile
to set up : two bars of wood with wire costs even more, owing to
the expense of carting and joining the wood. A liberal outlay on
fencing is well spent, as it secures protection to the sheep and saves
shepherds* wages. The country further on becomes more wooded
and hilly, until soon the towers and long line of Ballarat sweep
into view on the left across the ruddy table-land, and the cheers
of hearty crowds tell us we are at the end of our journey. The

1881. VISIT TO BALLARAT. 607

Mayor and Corporation and the Members of Parliament for the
county and city received the Governor on the platform at the
station, and there was a guard of honour of the Ballarat Bangers
(volunteer rifle corps), with their band, which played the British
National Anthem as the train drew up. The Ballarat troop of the
Prince of Wales's Light Horse formed the escort of honour for the
day. The reception was most enthusiastic. Mr. Perry, the town
clerk, read the shortest and pithiest of addresses, and " on behalf
of the citizens of Ballarat, and in token of our loyalty to the
throne and sincere regard for the person of Her Most Qracious
Majesty the Queen, we give you a hearty welcome." To this
Eddy made as short a reply, thanking them for their loyal and
hearty welcome to the " Golden City," and we at once got into
the carriages and drove up Lydiard Street into the town. The
crowds were simply enormous ; the broad streets were thick with
them, as were also the windows and roofs of the houses, and they
were all cheering and waving hats and handkerchiefs. We were
told they had come in to make holiday from the country round
to the number of 20,000. The road was kept by the foot and
mounted police, and by forming the State school children into
double line on either side, but we were only able to go very slowly.
The Alfred Bells in the tower of the Town Hall were ringing a
peal as we passed, and there were flags and banners and several
arches across the street. We drove up Sturt Street, passing St.
Patrick's Roman Catholic cathedral on the left and the Presbyterian
church immediately opposite on the other side; and further on
the Western Fire Brigade station, where all the firemen had turned
out with their engine, and went through their reel and hose prac-
tice : the men were on top of an hotel putting out an imaginary
fire, and their new fire-engine was sending out volumes of steam
and pumping up water from the level of the street. Next we passed
the large hospital in the midst of its extensive garden, and so out to
the Botanical Gardens, between two and three miles distant, along
the north shore of Lake Wendouree. We walked about in the
gardens for some time, and over the conservatories and palm-houses;
there are two fine avenues, one of Wellingtonias and the other of
acacia-trees, each over a mile long. The view of the towers and tall
chimneys of the city of Ballarat across on the other side of the
lake, seen through and beyond the trees of the garden, was very
pretty. Going thence to the landing-place on the shore of Lake
Wendouree, we went on board one of Mr. Ivey's curious little

508 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

saloon steamers named the Queen, and — escorted by a number of
centre-board cutter yachts, which, with their large sails, kept
tacking round and round the steamer — crossed to the other side.
This lake is nearly two thousand feet above the sea, and the air
felt crisp and the weather was bright and dry, with a light
southerly breeze. We were not surprised to hear that this pic-
turesque and pleasant city, blessed with a cool bracing climate,
with its broad open spaces, and long avenues of trees in its wide
thoroughfares, is for other reasons besides those of trade and
commerce, a favourite, as " the second city in Victoria," for people
who have retired from business in Melbourne and elsewhere to
reside at. For besides this healthy recreation of yachting and row-
ing on the lake, there are also ample cricket reserves in the several
districts of the town ; and other large spaces of ground set apai't for
the use of the inhabitants. The fishing, too, on the lake, from what
we heard of it, seems uncommonly good ; the supply of trout is un-
limited : many are caught over two feet long, and weigh ten pounds.
Thirteen miles further inland is Lake Burrumbeet, twenty miles
in circumference, and again to the north of that Lake Learmouth.

We landed at View Point, where several members of the Ballarat
Yacht Club were waiting, and where we got into the carriages
again, and drove back down Sturt Street, which, on account of its
breadth (198 feet) and the group of oak and eucalyptus trees down
the centre, looks like two parallel streets, to the City Hall. Here
we were to have lunch. First of all, however, we went out on to
the balcony, and a number of State school children, drawn up
on the opposite side of the square, beyond the crowd thickly
packed below, sang in chorus " God Save the Queen " and " God
Bless the Prince of Wales."

The bright, hospitable, cheery Mayor, Mr. Robert Lewis, who is
a Welshman, and " very proud of his prince," was full of memories
of ** the old principality," and also information regarding the early
days of Ballarat. Gold was first discovered here in 1851, the very
year in which the colony of Victoria was made a separate govern-
ment from that of New South Wales; and the extraordinary
richness of the ground drew together a large concourse of hardy
and robustious diggers, not only from England, but also from
America and other countries.^

* They flocked here at the rate of 500 a day : shearers left their sheep unless they
were paid 71. a week, all other trade was disorganised in the colony. Whole streets
of canvas tents covered what, up to that time, had simply been, in the language of

1881. BALLARAT. 509

There are three towns, Ballarat, Ballarat East, and Sebsistopol,

with three town halls, three mayors and corporations, &c. The

marvellous progress of this young town, scarce thirty years old, is

best illustrated by remembering that the distance through its

town from east to west is four miles — as great as that in London

from Kensington to the Bank ; while from north to south it is four

miles and a quarter, or the same distance as from Primrose Hill,

across Regents Park and Hyde Park, to Battersea. All this has

taken place within the memory of men still living on the spot ; is it

strange that they should feel proud, or plume themselves on what

their sinews and their perseverance have done with nature's gifts,

or feel the strongest attachment to the soil and spot that has given

them such prosperity ? The city, — whose population is already nearly

equal to that of the city of York, though it is only thirty years old,

whereas that old capital has seen fifty years to every one that Ballarat

has yet beheld, — is well supplied with water from reservoirs which

are computed to hold six hundred million gallons. As usual in the

colonies, the churches and schools and public libraries (of which

there are two, free, with over thirteen thousand volumes in each)

show up well amongst the public buildings ; there are eight State

schools, with an average attendance of three and a half thousand

the natives, Ballaarat, or '* camping ground," in the midst of the eucalyptus forest
No food, no local laws, no authority, no rights of property, except tne rights of
physical strength, at first existed. It was doubtful even to whom the land belonged,
and every fresh comer assumed that he had a right to dig and get as much gold out
of the soil as he could lay hands on. When Government, in 1851, tried to establish
a little order, and gave a miner a licence to dig, a fee of 309. a month was at first
charged ; this was proposed to be raised to 3^ a month, but the notice was with-
drawn and the fee was kept as at first : such a licence now costs 6s. a year. There were
riots three years afterwards, in 1864. Food meanwhile rose to incredible prices.
A shilling or a sovereign was all the same to a man when he was washing ten ounces
of gold (or iOl.) a day out of the dirt ; it was of the purest quality, and was found in
great quantities almost on the surface of the ground, where it could be unearthed
without much labour, and with the simplest description of tools. All this surface
gold has for some time been exhausted, and the present mines are worked deep down
like coal-pits, in the quartz rocks, by companies working with capitals varying from
10,000Z. to 50,000Z. each, or even more. The gold deposits traverse almost the whole of
Ballarat. They were the watercourses of ancient geologic ages, some of which now lie at
a depth of four or five hundred feet beneath the present surface, and are covered with
three or four layers of solid basaltic rocks, each from twenty to one hundred feet
thick. Although 200,000,000/. worth of gold has been already got out of Ballarat,
and although all the alluvial mining, when great nuggets or lumps of gold between
1,000 and 2,000 ounces each were found, is now exhausted, yet these quartz reefs under
Ballarat will continue to be worked for long years to come. In the early days of
colossal nuggets the "Welcome Stranger," weighing 2,280 ounces, a lump of solid
gold twenty -one inches long and ten inches thick, was found by the merest chance ; it
was worth 9,534Z. The " Welcome Nugget,'* which weighed 2,217 ounces, was sold
forlO,OOOZ. ; the "Heron," weighing 1,008 ounces, fetched 4,080Z. The Victoria
gold-fields now cover an area of 1,241 square miles, which in 1879 yielded 715,000
ounces, valued at 3,000,000/., and since then the increase in yield has been 30,000
ounces per annum.

610 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

children. The Chinese have a fair colony here, and by careful
plodding make their living from the exhausted leavings of the old
surface mines. After lunch we walked to the Academy of Music
in Lydiard Street, where in a large theatre were densely packed
together from pit to gallery the children of the Sunday schools of
every religious denomination. Eishop Thornton of Ballarat pre-
sented us in their name with a couple of Bibles, and all the children
sang a couple of verses of a hymn, which sounded very well.

On leaving them we drove to the Band of Hope and Albion
Consols Company's Mine. Huge mounds of red grey earth and
stone, with the tall wooden staging necessary for working the
machinery over the pit, rise a slight distance from the main
thoroughfare. Mr. Brophy, M.P. for Ballarat, chairman of the com-
pany, and Mr. Serjeant, the manager, showed us round. We first
went into the quartz-crushing house. A series of large metal boxes,
four feet long, one foot and a half wide, and from three to four feet
deep, are ranged down the building ; into these the stampers which
crush the quartz rise and fall by machinery. The quartz has pre-
viously been broken up into pieces about the size of stones used for
mending the roads in England, and the boxes are kept half full of
it. Into these, well mixed with water, the stones roll down inclined
shoots, which are fed by boys in an upper story. The stampers
fall from seventy-five to one hundred times in a minute, and
hence the noise in this crushing house, produced by the whirr of
the machinery and by the pounding of the stone by the battery
of the forty head of stampers, is naturally very great. In each
box there are four or five stampers at work, so arranged that
they never all fall together, but in rapid succession. Thus the
stone is pounded up into powder, in which form the quartz is
forced by the wash of water through a perforated iron grating in
the front side of the box. Sometimes the bulk of the gold from the
crushed stone gets stuck in the stamper boxes ; sometimes little
nuggets from the size of a pin's head up to that of a small pea are
thus left behind; generally, however, the gold in fine particles
passes through the perforated grating with the water and powdered
quartz on to a long inclined table, which is covered with copper
plate, and in which there are sunk two or three troughs filled
with quicksilver, for which metal gold has a remarkable affinity
and liking. This quicksilver licks up the small particles of gold
that pass into it, but some are carried over the troughs in the
slush of the water and powdered stone, and are then caught by

1881. DOWN A GOLD MINE. 611

several strips of blanket lower down. But in order even yet to
secure any stray gold that may have escaped, all the powdered
quartz and mud is caught again at the bottom of the inclined
plane, and placed in a sort of cistern, in which it is still further
churned ; and although to the naked eye nothing like gold is visible,
yet by chemical or electrical applications this mud is made to yield
the ore ; as much as one ounce per ton (and sometimes three or
four times as much) is extracted from this pyrites mud. These
batteries are usually " cleaned up " once a fortnight. The stampers
are lifted and the sediment in the boxes taken out and washed ; the
contents of the quicksilver troughs are squeezed through chamois
leather, when the pure quicksilver escapes through the leather,
sometimes leaving a mixture of about one-third gold and two-
thirds quicksilver in the leather ; this mixture is put in a retort
over a furnace, and the quicksilver drawn oflf from the gold ; the
blankets are washed in the cistern. The doors of the retorts where
the work of separating the mercury from the gold was progressing
were opened, and cakes of the retorted metal that had cooled were
given us to handle. Sometimes the quartz is burnt before being
crushed in order to make it more brittle. Very often quartz may
contain gold even though none may be visible in it to the inex-
perienced eye. Some mines pay dividends when only two or three
pennyweights of gold per ton of quartz are extracted. Five or six
pennyweights to the ton give a fair return on capital in well-
managed concerns. Some mines are worked 2,000 feet below the
surface, and yield as much as three ounces of gold per ton of quartz.
But after all, it is on the way in which the thousands of tons
of pyrites are handled that look like waste refuse that the real
paying character of the new mines depends. There are 72,000
tons of this pyrites to be dealt with every year in Victoria. Miners'
wages at an average are forty-eight shillings a week for eight
hours' work a day. Meat is only twopence-halfpenny a pound.

Leaving the crushing house we went down the shaft of the mine.
First of all, with the Admiral and Captain Durrant, we go into a
small wooden shanty and put on miners' clothes : thick canvas
trousers, oil-skin coats and caps, and thick heavy boots. We
then get into the cage, which takes three at a time standing very
close together, and we have to be careful that neither our arms nor
feet protrude beyond the edge of the cage. We each have a
lighted candle in our hand, and at a given signal down we go
into the darkness, smoothly and rapidly down the shaft, which is

512 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

only just big enough for the cage, so that in places it clicks against
the moist clay on the walls of the shaft with the slightest jolt in
the w orld. All of a sudden we come upon a flash of light, the cage
comes to a standstill, at the 420-foot level, and we get out into
a cavernous chamber hollowed in the rock, where we have to drink
in champagne to the health of the manager and success to the mine.
At the same time the men sing the National Anthem in musical
chorus the echo of which goes resounding along the galleries.
We leave this cavern and go along the passage in which the men
are working. Water is coming from the roof just like a shower of
rain, and we are glad of our waterproofs. The passage is four or
five feet high and three broad, and on the floor a naiTOw tramway
is laid ; on this run the little cars which contain the white quartz
broken from the roof and sides by the miners, and carry it off
away to the shaft, where it is lifted to the surface and taken to
the crushing machine. We take the pick, and knock away some
specimens of quartz, glistening with small particles of gold ; then
re-entering the cage are soon wound to the surface and come out
once more into daylight, where we find a photographer ready to
shoot us at once, in miners' clothes just as we are. We signed our
names in the book, and find that the Dukeof Edinburgh visited the
same mine in 1868. The total yield of this one mine amounts up
to the present time to 2,335,000/., of which nearly two millions
liave been obtained from the alluvial workings. The mine was
first opened twenty- four years ago by twenty working miners,
and afterwards taken in hand by a company, several claims being
gradually consolidated into one large holding. It was only about
three years ago that the alluvial leads gave out and that the quartz
reef then began to be worked.

We next went on to the North Hurdsfield Company's mine,
where we saw the old process of alluvial mining. This of course
is much simpler than the quartz mining, and merely consists in
washing and shaking the soil in large sieves. This soil how-
ever is not any longer that which lies on the surface, but has
itself to be brought up from some depth below. The dirt as it lies
on the trough is first worked with a huge harrow, and the gold
by its own weight falls to the bottom, and is conveyed away down
an open spout with water and small stones into another trough,
over which another man stands guardian. This afternoon the
specks of gold seemed to be lying so thick that we fancied they
must have been mixed in with the soil before it was washed in

Mr. Serjeant.

IN MINING RIO. Vol. i. p. 512.

Prince Albert Victor. Prince George.

Vice- Admiral CapUin Lonl Mr. Bropliy.

Eurlof Clanwilliara, CD. F. Diirrant, R.N. Hcrvey Plilppa.

1881. AT BALLARAT. 513

order not to disappoint the Governor and Admiral. We were told
that most of the gold found at Ballarat is worth over 4/. an
ounce. The Band of Hope is said to raise about three thousand
ounces a month at an expense of about half its value, and this gives
an average interest of 12 per cent, on the capital ; but of course
there are many risks, and very often nothing like this is gained.
We then drove through Ballarat, with its red, bare hillocks and
tall wooden erections for wheels over the shafts, some of them
disused and representing fortunes that had been made or lost, until
we came to Ballarat East. Here we stopped at the Town Hall in its
pretty garden, where the Mayor (Mr. Robertson), and the Corporation
met us. We planted a couple of pine-trees in the Town Hall reserve,
and after inspecting the Fire Brigade that were drawn up, and
hearing the local State school children again sing, went up stairs.
After drinking the Queen's health we went into the Free Library
close by, then started oflf and returned to the Boyal Hotel in
Ballarat, at 6 P.M., where there was a dinner given by the City
Council ; about sixty of us sat down altogether ; Mr. Lewis, the
Mayor, presided. Afterwards Major Smith (Minister of Education)
proposed the Governor's health, and Lord Normanby thanked them
all for the very hearty welcome given us to-day, and said what real
pleasure we had experienced in visiting Ballarat, and how we
should long look back to the visit, as no doubt would the people of
Ballarat themselves. The only other toast was "the Admiral," to
which Lord Clanwilliam replied, complimenting " the industry and
the vitality and the quick-witted enterprise of which we had seen so
many proofs around us during the day." All the officers present would,
he was sure, recollect for their lifetime in whatever portion of the
world it might be spent the reception they had met with here to-day.

We were obliged to get oflf to the station to return by special
train to Melbourne. The streets were still thronged with some
thousands of people, who cheered just as heartily in the dusk of the
evening as they had done in the morning. Many of the buildings
were illuminated, but the high wind that had got up rather spoilt
the eflFect. After much hand-shaking on the platform, and cordial
farewell to our friends of the Garden City, amid the blare of the
band, and the blaze of the torches held by the members of the
City Fire Brigade round about the station, we left Ballarat at
8.40 P.M., and were swept along by the special train at thirty-eight
miles an hour back to Melbourne, where we arrived at 11.20. The
same day the Squadron football team played the Wanderers

VOL. I. L L

514 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

of Melbourne and won : Rugby rules. There was also a tug-of-war
between fifteen men of the Squadron and as many of the colonial
Naval Reserve ; the latter won.

June SOth. — After breakfast drove into the town, and went
through the usual process of being photographed, first at Foster
and Martin's, then at Tuttle's, and lastly at Johnstone and
O'Shanassy's. After lunch we went with the Admiral to Alcock's
billiard-table manufactory in Russell Street. We saw the various
processes of wood-turning, slate-polishing, and how the balls were
made. All the machinery is Victorian made — nothing is imported.
Mr. Alcock gave us each a beautiful billiard cue that we saw
turned, which we shall take to Siandringham and always use
there. We next went on to the Public Library, in Swanston
Street. It is a grand building, the main front of which reminded
us somewhat of that of the British Museum. This front alone
(one out of four) cost 110,000Z. Inside there were all sorts of books,
and all sorts of people quietly reading ; one boy we came across deep
in Marryat's " Settlers in Canada." This public library is open
gratuitously to all the world six days a week, from ten in the morn-
ing tiU ten in the evening. Any man who is decent in his dress
and behaviour can have books, shelter, warmth, chair, table, and
light, up to ten at night day after day, year after year — and all for
nothing. For women who choose to be alone a separate room is
provided. Last year 261,886 readers used the libi*ary. We went
into the picture gallery, in which there are already many Royal
Academy favourites of past years bought for large sums, and some
good pictures ; some few lent by the Queen. Two thousand pounds
per annum is spent by Victoria in making additions to it. In
the sculpture gallery are casts of all the most famous statues of
antiquity, and a few original works of modem sculptors. We then
went up on to the roof of the library, from which there is a fine view
looking down all over Melbourne and Hobson's Bay in the distance.

After dinner we went to the Mayor s ball at the Town Hall. At
this there were at least two thousand people present. The whole
front at the corner of Collins and Swanston Streets was brilliantly
illuminated ; inside the fern decorations were very eflfective, all
round the front of the galleries great tree-ferns were also standing
at short intervals, giving shade from the glare. The whole thing
was a fine sight ; we danced tiU \ye went to supper, which was
served in the courtyard, covered in and decorated; some of the
confectionary erections on the supper-table were wonderful. There

1881. ABOUT IN MELBOURNE. 615

was not much speechifying, but the Governor in returning thanks
for his health referred to our presence in Australia, and said, " that
he had resided now for many years in British colonies, and whatever
their other characteristics might be, he could answer for their
loyalty and affection for the Queen, and their love for the old
country, and that Australia had given full proof that England
may rely on the devotion of her loyal people on this side of the
world."

KELLY 8 ARMOUR.

July Ist. — Kelly's armour was brought up for us to see ; it is in
four pieces made from ploughshares, and weighs nearly 97 lbs. ; we
put it on, and it felt very heavy and clumsy : the helmet for the
head is merely like a round pot with the bottom knocked out ; the
breastplate is dinted with shot-marks but not perforated. Kelly
was ultimately wounded below the knee, for the iron apron did
not cover the lower part of his legs. It was in the rough moun-
tainous border country on the eastern frontiers of Victoria and New
South Wales that the Kelly gang of bushrangers found aid and
shelter among a population, many of whom though ostensibly
farmers, were more inclined to live by lifting the sheep and cattle
of the neighbouring squatters than by honest labour. They were
put down by the police last year.

L L 2

516 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

To-day is a public holiday, for it is the thirtieth birthday of
Victoria. When the colony was born to separate life from New
South Wales its population was only 97,000 : to-day it is nearly
1,000,000. The separation was necessary on account of the distance
of nearly 600 miles (or as far as from Paris to the Orkneys), which
lay between the central government at Sydney and Melbourne.
There were no railways, and the difficulty of communication
rendered it impossible that its local wants could be properly looked
after from thence. "Accordingly," (as we have just been reading
in to-day's newspaper,) " first Victoria and then Queensland have
been detached ; and in all probability the last-named colony will
ultimately find that a further subdivision is necessary. To each
generation, however, its own work belongs. The duty of the men of
1851 was to secure local self-government; in 1881, while accepting
local government as the necessary basis, we are called upon to labour
and contend for Federal unity. Our individual rights, so to speak,
are secured, and we are now required to consider the Australian com-
munity as a whole. Our contemporary, the Sydney Morning
Herald recently published tables showing the trade between New
South Wales and Victoria during 1880, and the figures are so many
proofs of the close business connection of the two colonies and of the
importance of facilitating commercial and social intercourse, and
of establishing permanent and friendly political relations. New
South Wales imported from Victoria goods to the amount of
2,187,000/., and Victoria received from New South Wales goods to
the value of 4,578,000/. Thus the total trade between the two
colonies reaches the enormous sum of 6,765,000/. ; a traflSic of this
extent implies that in important particulars there really is no
separation, but the twain are one. The south and south-western
districts of New South Wales continue to make Melbourne their
market. The live stock we took from the mother colony in 1880
was valued at 700,000/., and the coal we purchased from her was
valued at 225,000/. We are sending our potatoes, stone, timber,
hay, and other farm produce to New South Wales, and we are
taking sheep, cattle, coal, maize and green fruits in return. The
wool we have shipped last year from New South Wales for Europe
was valued at 3,220,000/. These statistics show how closely the
two colonies are allied, and how much they lean upon each other ;
such being the magnitude of the trade, how foolish are the eflForts
to keep the two colonies apart. Common sense happily is in
incessant revolt against these tactics : this very year we have had

1881.

*' SEPARATION DAY" IX VICTORIA.

517

negotiations for a customs union which would have swept our
barbarous border imposts away, as everywhere we are constructing
railways to tap the Murray and secure the trade of central Australia.
It is something that general applause was then bestowed upon the
principle of an Australian ZoUverein, under which the traveller
would know no border lines, and the one colony would exchange
its products freely with the other. In this way only can

KELLr THE BUSHRAKOER.

justice be done to the resources of Australia as a whole by
giving each part a substantial market for its specialities. This
is the policy which obtains even in protectionist America, in
Germany, in France ; and only here do we burlesque protection
by pitting parts of a country against each other and the whole.
The men who struggled for and who obtained local self-government

518 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

for Victoria thirty years ago to-day would have had no sympathy
whatever with the narrow provincial feeling which is apt to regard
our neighbours as alien and their trade to be expressly legislated
against, as though they were Chinese. Common sense and
common interest are against those who seek to arouse class feelings
on the one hand and intercolonial jealousies on the other. Thirty
years have elapsed since Victoria obtained local self-government,
but we may still hope that nothing like another term of thirty
years will pass before Victoria, as a self-governed state, will be also
a part and portion of a federated Australia ; and that we shall have
here ' the one people and the one flag.' " — (ITie Argus, July 1, 1881.)
[Self-governing communities are slow to surrender their rights,
their immunities, or even their prejudices except in the face of a
common danger ; and the desire for federation first entered into
the practical politics of Australia when the colonists began to fear
the presence in their immediate neighbourhood of French r^cidi-
vistes. Each colony has a land system of its own ; each has a differ-
ent tariff framed upon a different principle, inasmuch as fair trade,
free trade, and protection have each their votaries in these colonies.
Such divergences are not extraordinary ; some of them are even
necessary. For colonies hke Western Australia and Queensland,
. which contain millions of acres of unoccupied land, are compelled to
bid more highly for population than the comparatively more thickly-
peopled communities of Victoria, and some small portions of New
South Wales. But it is only after allowance has been made for all the
obstacles in the way of federation that their unimportance is most
clearly apparent. It was a common danger from without that
began to weld the Australian colonies together, as. it had similarly
welded together the American colonies, and the kingdoms and
peoples of the German Empire. The action of France in sending
the worst of her population, 60,000 in all, in batches of 5,000
annually, with *•' la liherU absolue, sans aucune restriction!* (every
man who had been four times convicted before a magistrate for
any offence) to New Caledonia, and allowing them to wander forth
from thence into Australia, murdering, ravishing, thieving in the
outlying up-country stations where police were few, it was this and
the desire of France to break her agreement with Great Britain,
and seize upon the New Hebrides, that chiefly brought home
to the Australians the need of common action, and federal union.
In June, 1883, a deputation of the Agents-General waited on Lord
Derby and laid their views before him, both as regards this question

1881. AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION. 519

and the proposed annexation of New Guinea. He told them that
" it was a large question, and involved much responsibility," and
that ** its full consideration should be preceded by a federation " of
the colonies concerned, '* to whom might be transferred the
obligations of Great Britain in respect of neighbouring native
communities." Still he thought that " the whole question, with
its attendant expenses and responsibilities, was not necessary to be
entertained at the present time." In October they asked him
whether he would kindly furnish them with an estimate of the
cost of the measures which they proposed, and expressed a
willingness to bear all the pecuniary burden of the same between
themselves. He answered that "the cost of such arrangements
could hardly fail to amount to some thousands of pounds annually,
but that an attempt to state it more precisely might tend to mis-
lead." Each of the colonies volunteered at once an annual grant of
15,000/., which was supposed to be amply sufficient.

Meanwhile in August Sir Thomas Mcllwraith, the Premier of
Queensland, had proposed that a convention of delegates from the
colonies should be held to discuss the basis on which a federal
government could be constituted. Mr. Service, the Premier of
Victoria, proposed that they should meet at Sydney in the following
month, to suit the convenience of the New South Wales Premier.
The intercolonial conference of the prime ministers and certain
delegates from all the colonies of as general a representative charac-
ter as possible — fifteen in all, of whom seven were Australians bora
— met at Sydney in November, 1883, and after protesting *'in the
strongest manner against the French project for sending convicts to
the South Pacific," asked the Home Government once more to inter-
fere. They '* expressed a confident hope that no penal settlement for
the reception of European criminals will long continue to exist in
the Pacific, and invited Her Majesty's Government to make to the
Government of France such serious representations as might be
deemed expedient." They also unanimously resolved ; " That the
time has arrived at which a complete federal union of the Australian
colonies can be attained," and drafted the sketch of a Bill for the con-
stitution of a Federal Council. They laid down three leading princi-
ples : the first was the dominance of British interests in the Pacific ;
the second, the development of a united Australasian nationality ;
and the third was the furtherance of Imperial unity. As the dele-
gates, however, had no parliamentary organisation whatever, their
resolutions were merely binding on the Cabinets represented, not

620 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

on the colonies they came from. Hence the legislatures of three of
the colonies alBfected afterwards passed addresses to the Queen, pray-
ing for an Act of the Imperial Parliament to constitute such council.
The legislature however of New South Wales, containing 108
members, declined, Nov. 1884, by the bare majority of one, to peti-
tion the Queeu for the creation of such Federal Council. It was
urged by their leading men that it would be unwise to give a
great and overruling legislative power to so small a council as
proposed. That a really elBfective and suflBciently large Central
Parliament, directly elected by the people, was what many in New
South Wales desired — a bond fide federal union, and not a half-way
house in which misunderstandings would be likely to arise ; in the
inchoate scheme they found no common Australian exchequer, no
means of paying the expenses of the Federal Council, or the levying
of contributions for carrying out its enactments, no executive at
all, and no direct popular representation provided for. It was
thought too at Sydney, whether rightly or wrongly, that the popu-
larity in the great rival colony of Victoria of this scheme for the
federation of Australia, was due to the development of protec-
tionist feeling ; that the protected manufacturers in Victoria had
over-produced for their small community, and wanted a larger
market, and fancied that they would get such a market if Australia
were federated under a tariff somewhat resembling their own. But
Mr. Service, the Victorian Premier, although he has formed a coali-
tion government with an intense protectionist like Mr. Berry, is
himself a [free trader, and advocates an Australian federation for
entirely other reasons, of which dealing with the tariff is not one.
In 1885 the British Parliament at the proposal of Mr. Gladstone
passed the Act for constituting "a Federal Council of Australasia"
"for the purpose of dealing with such matters of common Austral-
asian interest, in respect to which united action is desirable, as can
be dealt with without unduly interfering with the management of
the internal affairs of the several colonies by their respective legis-
latures." It is to meet at least once every two years in the capitals
of the various colonies in succession. Each colony is to send two
members delegated by the Cabinet in office for the time being of that
colony. This Council has " legislative authority over 'the relations
of Australasia with the islands of the Pacific, prevention of influx of
French convicts, fishery questions, enforcement of criminal or civil
processes and writs beyond the limits of the particular colony in
which they are issued ; ' and over the following (provided only that

1881. AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION. 521

the united legislatures of any two of the colonies refer such matters
to the council)— ' quarantine, patents, copyright, marriage laws,
colonial defence and any other matter of general Australasian
interest with respect to which the Legislatures of the several
Colonies can legislate within their own limits, and as to which it
is deemed desirable that there should be a law of general application/
But proviso is made that such acts of the council shall be binding
only on those colonies whose legislatures at first referred the matter
to the council, and such others whose legislatures may afterwards
see fit to adopt the same. Any colony may secede from the union
at pleasure." It is thus manifest that the foi-ln of confederation is
looser even than the first confederation of out thirteen American
colonies, and the last two provisos, that the Acts of the Federal
Council only hold when approved by the local legislatures of each
colony, and that any colony may secede at pleastire, were precisely
the ones which Washington held fatal to afiy real and lasting union.
The Queen has a veto on all acts of this cotincil. At present the
Ministers of five out of the eight colonies of Australasia, viz., of
Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania and Fiji only,
have appointed delegates to this council. Tbe first meeting of the
council, representing a million and a half of people — just about half
of the whole of the Australasian colonies, took place Jan. 25th,
1S86. Although the'cofe'Mea^ofNew South Wales, New Zealand,
and South Australia stand aloof, yet iiiis'iTuion is a great step
forward; and although, in Colonel Stanley's words (who was
Minister for the Colonies when the Act was finally passed) "in its
present shape it is tentative and capable of improvement and
development, it may, if judiciously used, be of much value to the
Australasian colonies and to British interests generally.** Colonisa-
tion has a tendency to make people very practical, and disinclined
to stand very strictly on theories. The quality in Australians which
difierentiates them alike from Englishmen and Americans is a
certain rapidity of decision. This idea of federation, for example,
after full discussion and well weighing the difficulties, has ripened
in a day. It will not perish, but will most certainly grow and
develop into a larger and more vigorous progeny. Federation
means to all Australians, whether assenting or not assenting to
this Federal Council, "Draw, us closer, first together, and then to
the parent country." For it is some more comprehensive scheme
of Imperial Federation that all loyal colonists have at heart.]
At 12.30 we started for Caulfield, with Lord Normanby, who drove

522 . CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

us in his four-in-hand to the "Separation-Day** meeting of the
Amateur Turf Club, a body of gentlemen who are desirous of
improving the breed of horses here. It was seven miles out of
Melbourne, and the horses in the public and private conveyances
on the road were very good ; the mounted police . were on
splendid chargers. Almost all are thoroughbred, and have pedi-
grees more or less illustrious. The ordinary hackney vehicle here is
a kind of one-horse waggonette. Omnibuses to which there is no
conductor ply in all directions, notice being posted at the street
comers as to their destination. In such arrangements Melbourne
seems far ahead of London. Waiting-rooms mark the stopping
places. The race-course is very pretty, on the borders of an un-
dulating heath: and the outlook from the grand stand over the
country inland, over the city and over the sea, is very wide. We got
in time for the hurdle race, for which twenty horses started ;
the length of the course is a mile and a half ; Mr. Selman's "Jack
Tar " won in 2 min. 58 sec. We had lunch in a tent with the
committee and stewards behind the grand stand, and after walking
about on the lawn and saddling-paddock, saw the race for the
Victoria Gold Cup ; only six entries, course, steeplechase, about
two miles and a half. The jumps consisted of strong wooden
fences such as are to be seen all over the country, about five feet
high. The horses were all ridden by members of the Club, and
Mr. M*Rae, riding on Mr. Howie's " CoUingwood," won by ten
lengths in 6 min. 14 sec. ; Eddy presented the cup to him with
many congrat\ilations. After this there was a handicap flat
race, for which nineteen horses started; it was won by Mr.
Paterson's "Wizard" by a short neck, although he was third
favourite. We stayed to see another steeplechase over the long
course for which ten horses started. It was won by Mr. Addis's
** Abdallah " (an Adelaide horse), by three lengths ; time, 6 min.
2 sec. There were three spills, and one poor man unfortunately
broke his leg. The ground was in excellent order, and the weather
was bright and sunshiny. It was a pretty gathering, and there
were about three thousand persons on the ground. No Austra-
lian horses have yet competed for any of the English big races,
as the long sea voyage would interfere with their training.
The course for the English Derby is the same as that for the
Victorian (1^ mile), except that it is hilly and therefore a little more
diflScult. The conditions of the race are the same, and taking
an average of six years there is, according to time test, little to

1881. BOUND MELBOURNE. 523

choose between English and Australian race-horses. 2 min. 39 sec.
is the best time the race has been run here. The English studs
are still being drawn on both for mares and stallions, and consider-
ing the money which is being spent in obtaining the best blood
from England, there is no reason whatever why the Australian
horses should not equal, even if they do not ultimately surpass,
the best English thoroughbreds. Besides this Caulfield race-course
there is another at Flemington, three miles out of Melbourne,
belonging to the Victoria Racing Club, it is nearly surrounded by
hills, from which as an amphitheatre as many as 80,000 people look
down on the Melbourne Cup Day, an inter-colonial and national
holiday for Australia, where all classes meet. On the way home
we looked in at the football match that was being played on the
Melbourne cricket ground between the inter-colonial twenties of
New South Wales and Victoria; it was the first played under
Victorian rules, and Victoria won. In the evening we had a very
pleasant dinner at the Melbourne Club, given by the members to
the officers of the Bacchante and Cleopatra. The officers of the
other ships of the squadron had previously been entertained by the
same hosts on their arrival, while our two ships were at Albany.

July 2nd, — After breakfast walked down into the Botanical
Gardens, where Mr. Guilfoyle, the director, met us. They seem
very extensive, and the ground is more broken up by hills and lakes
than in those at Adelaide. The ponds, with their islands and no
end of little summer-houses, are all covered with duck and swan.
We went into one of the large fern-houses, and down by the lake
side, and planted a couple of palms on the buffalo-grass lawn. The
Government have lately reduced the allowance and the gardens
proportionally suffer. Leaving them we walked on up the hill to
the Observatory, where Mr. Ellery, the Astronomer Royal, showed us
the transit instruments and the large equatorial telescope, which
had for some years the distinction of being the largest in the world.
We tried to get a view of the sun-spots, but the morning was too
cloudy. In the aftemooi^ we drove with Lady Normanby through
Hawthorn, Toorak and Kew (suburbs of Melbourne) to call on Lady
Stawell and the Chief Justice. On two sides, the south and east
of the city, the gardens and pleasant houses of most townspeople of
moderate means stretch for miles. Although shops, markets, banks,
and offices are in Melbourne, every one who can afford it lives in the
suburbs. Many of the villas that we passed in their gardens
reminded us strongly of those at Clapham or in the other suburbs

524 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

of London, except that a broad balcony and verandah round the
whole house is much commoner here than in England, and tells
of the greater sunglai-e and heat of the southern summer.
Asking about poor laws in the colony, we were told there were none ;
there is no poor-rate, but there are benevolent asylums supported
by voluntary subscriptions : into these any applicant really des-
titute can get : but of those who people the five such in Victoria,
only one-tenth part are colonial bom. Drink and improvidence
make paupers here as elsewhere. Few things have struck us
more than the absence of all signs of poverty and distress in
Australia. We are told that what distress there is exists mainly
in the large towns, and owes its origin to a great extent to the
unwillingness of immigrants on arriving in Australia to proceed up
country. There is plenty of work for them to do if they will go :
work for man, woman, and boy. The existence of miles and miles
of streets, made up of dens of squalid tenements, hardly fit for an
animal to dwell in, su6h as we have passed over in the railway
when going out of London, are impossible here. Every man here
can support himself if he will, and the result of the well-being of
the working classes is naturally the enjoyment of a far greater
degree of happiness than falls to their lot in England. Of the
surprising vigour of the Victorian there can be no doubt; the
secret of their energy lies in the fact that the Victorians for the
most part are full-blooded English immigrants ; brought only to
their maturity to live in the exhilarating air of Melbourne, the
finest climate in the world for healthy men. It is strange, but we
are told that the thermometer here "has not the slightest eflfect
upon the heat," so dry, so healthy is the air; up country fevers
are unknown. The mean annual temperature is 57°, that is, the
climate is the same as in the north of Italy. The cost of living is
about the same as in London, rents are higher, furniture, &c.,
dearer, but butchers' meat, bread, and clothes are cheaper. About
three out of every four mechanics who have reached middle life
own the neat cottages they occupy.

The whole country on this side of Melbourne is broken up, and
i-uns away in hills, tier behind tier, inland, and from the Chief
Justice's garden there are this evening lovely views over them and
the woods in the distance westward as the sun goes down. After
dinner we went to Mr. Kowalski's concert at the Town Hall, which
will seat nearly 3,000 persons : the front entrance was again all
ablaze with light ; the music was chiefly classical. One perform-

1881.

IN HOBSON'S BAY, MELBOURNE.

525

ance, however, was a Hungarian march played upon eight grand
pianos. On leaving, we drove down to Sandridge Pier, and went
off to the Bacchante,

July Srd, — This morning the news arrived of the gloom and the
horror that has suddenly fallen on so many millions of our English-
speaking brethren on the other side of the Pacific, through the
attempt made yesterday by a Canadian Frenchman to assassinate
General Garfield, President of the United States ; it was only at
St. Vincent on our way out that we heard of his election (p. 260).
Remained quietly on board the Bacchante all day. At mornings
service the Holy Communion was celebrated. Captain Robbie of
the Cathay, which is lying off Williamstown, and with whom we

* BACCHANTE '* AT ANCHOR IN HOBSON'S BAT WITHOUT HER RUDDER. •

had crossed from Albany to Adelaide, came on board to lunch.
He sails on the return voyage to England on Tuesday morning,
taking nearly 50,000/. worth of gold and specie with the mails.
The two kangaroos from South Australia are both dead, probably
from cold. After evening service we landed and went up to
Government House, where Prince Louis of Battenberg from the
Inconstant is also staying.

July 4ith. — After breakfast we went into the state drawing-room
with the Governor, and there received three Addresses. This was
a business of robes and uniforms. The first Address was from the
Mayor (Mr. Meares) and Corporation (seven aldermen and twenty-

626 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

one councillors) of Melbourne. They assured us that " in no part of
the British Empire is more loyal and devoted attachment enter-
tained towards the throne and person of our most gracious sovereign
than in this city, the capital of the colony which is honoured with
Her Majesty's name." It was read by Mr. Fitzgibbon, the town
clerk, and had been drawn up as long ago as May 9th, when they
first heard of our proposed visit here from the Cape. In our reply
we told them that " from the day when we both landed in King
George's Sound up to the present time we had experienced from all
our fellow-subjects in Australia the warmest and most kindly of
welcomes, but nowhere had the free and spontaneous loyalty shown
by the people of Victoria and by the citizens of this metropolis
been surpassed. Our father, the Prince of Wales, has com-
missioned us to tell you how sincerely he regrets not yet to have
had the pleasure of visiting these shores. Should he, or either
of us again hereafter come amongst you, may this wealthy and
magnificent colony still be found in the forefront of progress and
of prosperity."

After shaking hands they went out, the Mayor (Mr. Williams)
and Corporation of Sandridge came in, (Sandridge is the port of
Melbourne, about one mile and a half to the south of the city, on
the shores of Hobson's Bay. Its business is chiefly dependent on the
shipping and the factories in connection with this ; but many of the
residents have also their places of business in Melbourne.) They
hoped "we should heartily enjoy our temporary sojourn under the
sunny skies of Victoria, and that we would be gratified with all that
might paes under our observation of the life and manners in this
portion of Australia ; and that when the time should arrive for us
once more to go afloat we would carry away many pleasurable
reminiscences of our visit to the colony, and that He who rules the
winds and waves would grant us favourable gales to speed us on
our way." To this we replied that " When the Queen hears from
us of the loyal sentiments you have this day expressed towards the
Crown of Great Britain it will be a fresh assurance to Her Majesty
that in the southern hemisphere the Queen has no more true or
faithful subjects than the people of Victoria. For your kind wishes
regarding ourselves and shipmates we heartily thank you."

This done, the Melbourne Harbour Trust with their chairman
(the Hon. Thomas Loader) came in. Their Address was in dupli-
cate, and there was one for each of us. They *' hoped we should
carry back to Great Britain many pleasant remembrances of this

1881. TO THE CKICKET CLUB, MELBOURNE. 627

important Australian division of the British Empire, which we
should find peopled everywhere hy Her Majesty's loyal and patri-
otic suhjects." We thanked them for their welcome to the port
of Melbourne. ** Nothing we shall ever see at home, or in any
other colony or portion of the British Empire, will obliterate the
remembrance we shall carry away with us of this splendid port
and bay, and of the hospitality we have in such rich measure met
with at your hands." The two Corporation Addresses were beauti-
fully got up with water-colour drawings of the city and various
Australian scenes and flowers, as well as illuminated all round
the sides. Copies of Sir John Coode's report on the improvement
of the port of Melbourne were also given to us. The river was
originally only navigable for vessels of nine feet draught; now
those drawing sixteen can come right up into the heart of the city.
Large works are in hand for still further deepening and widening
the channel. Last year nearly a million tons of shipping entered
and cleared the port of Melbourne. The value of the city imports
last year was fifteen millions, and the exports about the same.
Melbourne contains 2,469 factories, employing 38,141 hands, and
converted last year eight millions* worth of raw material into
thirteen millions' worth of finished articles.

In the afternoon we went to lay the foundation stone of the new
pavilion in the Melbourne ciicket-ground. The Hon. (now Sir)
W. J. Clarke, president of the club, and many of the members were
there. We find that the bats and balls are not made in Victoria,
although there is a heavy duty of course on the import of these
foreign articles from England.

After laying the stone Eddy called for three cheers for the club,
of which we both to-day became honorary members, and carried
away two silver trowels in memory of the occasion. We saw a
sketch and plan of the building as it is to be when completed by
December 1st : it will cost nearly 5,000i.

In the evening we went with Lord Normanby and the Admiral,
and all the captains, to a concert in the International Exhibition
building of 1880, given by the metropolitan Liedertafel : there were
six thousand persons present, but plenty of room, as the portion of
the building in which the concert was held very much resembles the
centre part of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, with its lofty arches
and iron pillared galleries at the side. The nave is 500 feet long
and 160 feet broad : two annexes are 460 feet long : it is sur-
mounted by a great dome. Everybody supposed that it would be

528 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

very cold, but they had warmed the place somehow with the gas
that had been burning ever since four o'clock in the afternoon. On
the large space in front of the orchestra amongst others who were
waiting was Mr. Berry. He has to-day asked for a dissolution
of the Chamber and an appeal to the colony, as on the morning
of last Friday (Separation Day) a vote of want of confidence in his
government was carried against him by Sir Bryan O'Loghlen, by
forty-four votes to forty-one. The debate commenced on June 23rd,
and only ended last night : the terms of the resolution carried are
most general — " that this House has no confidence in the conduct
of the present Ministry of Public Business, either in Parliament or
in the Departments.'* As for as we can make out, there does not
seem to be any great political question at issue between the Min-
istry and the Opposition, but it seems to be an entirely personal
matter. If a dissolution is granted it will be the third appeal to
the colony within sixteen months. Annual parliaments have been
talked about, but five-monthly ones seem living rather fast.^

^ The Berry ministry resigned Jul^ 9th, 1881, and were succeeded by the
O'Loghlen ministry, which continued in office till March 7th, 1883. They were
succeeded on March 8th, 1883, by the strong coalition ministr}' of Mr. Service and
Mr. Berry, who are still in office. The usual advantages of a coalition have resulted :
less wrangling in the House and more work done. Tne Opposition numbers only six
members. Mr. Service is a hearty and avowed free-trader, but his principal colleague,
Mr. Berry (the Chief Secretary ), is as strong a protectionist. One of the most beneficent
and wide-reaching Bills carried by this ministry has been the throwing open all
Government appomtments to competition, thus striking straight at the heart of
political patronage. The Victorian Government have abandoned all patronage con-
nected with the Civil Service ; all such appointments are now in the hands of a Board,
entirely independent of Governments. All young men, without distinction of rank
or country, provided they are capable, and either bom or naturalised British subjects,
can now enter the service of the State. There are to be four divisions of the service :
the heads of departments alone in the first ; professional men and teachers in the
second ; the clerical staff in the third ; and the non-clerical staff in the fourth. The
clerical staff is to be subdivided into five subordinate classes, the first, second, and
third of which are to be a higher grade, and the fourth and fifth a lower. This new
classification will in itself work a wholesome revolution, if impartially carried out.
Any man found unqualified for his class will have to fall back on the next lower class,
receiving merely the highest salary of that class ; and, on the other hand, a man
doing higher class work than that of the class he is in will be entitled to promotion
on vacancies occurring in the class above him. No new appointments are to be made
except on the suggestion of the permanent head, and even then only when the Board
has certified as to the propriety of the appointment and ha-s named the proposed
officer. He will then undergo a three months' probation, at the end of which time
he is to receive a final certificate from the Board that he has complied with all the
provisions of the Act. All new candidates for the service are to pass, as in England,
a competitive examination. These examinations will be under regulations, and the
successful competitors are to be registered according to merit, and are to be admitted
in that order to the service. Only persons between sixteen and twenty-five years of
age are to be eligible, save in the professional division ; and no officer is to have
promotion except on condition of his insuring his life. This is a wholesome provision
m the main, but, if inflexibly imposed, may come hard on those who are not fortunate
enough to have insurable lives. Men may rise from the fifth to the fourth class

1881. VISIT TO SANDHURST. 529

We stayed to the end of the concert : the organ, the choir, and
the orchestra, of which the bands of both the Inconstant and
Bacchante formed part, performed two pieces of Beethoven (the
finale of the Symphony in C Minor and his " Hymn to the Night "),
Haydn's Fifth Symphony, and the Bacchus chorus from Mendels-
sohn's "Antigone'* : the whole thing was most successful, the music
good and well performed, and the people bright and pleasant.

July 5th, — This morning we went with Lord Normanby and
Captain Lord Charles Scott and about thirty other officers from
the. squadron to Sandhurst. The special train left Spencer Street
at nine ; we stopped for a few minutes at Kyneton and also at
Castlemaine (eighty miles from Melbourne). At each of these
places there were numbers of people and the stations were
decorated with flags and evergreens ; at Castlemaine the Mount
Alexandra Rifle Volunteers were drawn up : at one of them an old
gentleman introduced himself as having been a chorister in younger
days at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. The train also
pulled up on the Taradale viaduct : this is 650 feet long, and
from the centre we looked down into the valley 115 feet below;
when it was built wages were so high that it cost nearly two
hundred thousand pounds. The run to-day was over quite
different country to that we crossed on our visit to Ballarat last
week. It strikes almost due north from Melbourne and traverses the
counties of Bourke, Dalhousie, and Talbot to Beudigo : the country
is undulating, with richly cultivated cornfields, and very pretty.
This is the line that runs on northward and crosses the Victorian
border at Echuca, and penetrates the Riverina (as the district of
New South Wales to the north of the River Murray is called), and
striking up into the heart of their country draws the New South
Wales wool from Deniliquin, its capital ; though with the opening
of the new eastern line, which is nearly completed, the Sydney
Government hope to be able at a profit to carry all the goods up
and down between their own colonists in Riverina and the Port of
Sydney, and when that is done it will make an immense diflference

Tvithout farther examination ; hut from the fourth to the third a second examination
will be imposed. All promotions will be by seniority and merit combined, and on
the certificate of the head of the department that the officer is worthy of promotion.
Temporary appointments are to be only for three months. In the Education Depart-
ment the teachers are to be classified by a special Board, to consist of the Inspector-
General, a head-teacher of a school with an average attendance of 700, and a third
ap])ointed by the Governor in Council. Teachers are to be classified, and if dis-
satisfied with their classification are to be sJlowed an appeal to the Commissioners.
In the general service officers are to retire at the age of sixty, unless for special
reasons their services are continued.

VOL. I. M M

530 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

in tlie inland trade of Melbourne. This diversion of the tide of
traffic from the south to the east will be also further accelerated
by the protection duties which have to be paid on crossing the
Victorian border. All the railways in Victoria are State property :
the colony borrowed the money for making them in the home
market, pays the interest on the loans out of general revenue, and
applies the earnings of the railways to the revenue also, just as we
saw done in Trinidad. There are already over one thousand miles
of railway completed in the colony. In a few years the railways
will be more than self-supporting, as the resources of the country
become daily more developed by their means.

At one place that we passed, Sir W. J. Clarke's residence, with
many little towers, and a great variety of gable and outline, reminding
us of those of a Scotch castle, was pointed out to us on the right of
the line situated in its park and grounds. He is the first Victorian
who has ks yet been made a baronet. Some eight or nine years
ago he inherited a third of the fortune of three millions sterling
which his father left to three sons, the foundation of whose wealth
was the purchase in the early days of the colony of a block of
sixty thousand acres of land at Sunbury, close to what was then
Port Phillip. At the present time, on account of the growth of
Melbourne, its value can hardly be estimated. He was a large
stockholder and sheep-farmer, and now owns extensive pastoral
properties in New South Wales, Queensland, and New Zealand.
Sir William was president of the Melbourne International Exhi-
bition of last year, and has subscribed over ten thousand pounds
for the building of the new cathedral, and several thousands to
the Victorian relief fund for the Indian famine.

We reached Sandhurst at twelve o'clock; it is just over 100
miles north-west of Melbourne, and fifty-six only from Echuca on
the northern firontier of Victoria: but is more than 1,700 feet higher
than Melbourne ; there was a most enthusiastic reception, we never
saw anything to equal it. (The Duke of Edinburgh was here on the
18th December, 1867.) Mr. Hayes, the mayor, and the other local
magnates with the members of Parliament for the district were on
the platform and said a few words of cordial welcome. We then got
into the carriages, and, escorted by the Prince of Wales's Light
Horse (Volunteers), started, but could only move at a walking pace
towards the town. There were at least twenty thousand people
in the streets and on the tops of the houses. At one spot there
were a number of Scotchmen in kilts and tartans, dancing reels

1881. SANDHURST. 631

to the music of tLe bagpipe. We drove up Mitchell Street and
round the town, down the main street, called Pall Mall, on one side
of which are the chief buildings of the place ; on the opposite side
is the open reserve known as Rosalind Park. We passed Charing
Cross, where the new fountain is, and so on through the town to
the Shamrock Hotel, where the mayor and council had prepared
lunch for us. Amongst others whom we had the pleasure of
meeting here was an old gentleman who had been in the Royal
Artillery under Sir F. Williams at Kars, and before that, as a
lieutenant, he remembered meeting Sir Henry Keppel, himself a
lieutenant at the time, in Ceylon, under Sir Gore Jones. After
lunch we went to the EUesmere gold mine, stopping on the way
at the new granite fountain, which we set going and named the
" Alexandra ; " we also planted a couple of pine trees in the reserve.
Out of the forty millions worth of gold raised from the mines of
this district at least one-fifth has been obtained from the New Chum
reef which is called the backbone of Sandhurst. On this reef there
are many leasehold mines, and the EUesmere is one. Mr. Burrowes,
M.P., and chairman, took us over the works. Several of the officers
of the squadron went down the shaft, 660 feet deep ; the works are
much the same as those at Ballarat. Chatting with members of the
crowd in a casual way, we, without their knowing more than that
we had come from Melbourne, heard several things. Asked one
rosy-faced and sturdy young miner, of eighteen, whether he was an
Irishman or Scotchman or Englishman : he said he was neither the
one nor the other, but that he was a " colonial " born and bred. This
is the way a national feeling begins to arise.^ From these mines,

' The first white child was born in Victoria in 1838. In the census of 1881 for
the first time the Australian bom population was found to be in the majority, numbering
499,199 out of total of 862,346. Jn New South Wales at the same date there were
465, .')59 Australians bom out of a total of 751,468. In Queensland 100,901 out of
218,525. In Tasmania 83,976 out of 115,705, and in New Zealand 240,381 out of
489,933. More than one- half of the total population of Australasia have thus never
visited and are never likely to visit the mother country. Their hopes and aspirations
find their chief aims within ** the long wash of Australasian seaa ; " and this propor-
tion is of course relatively increasing at a rapid rate. But though they are
Australasians to the rest of the world, though their national pride in and affection for
the land of their birth is as keen and visible as that of any Scotch, Irish, Welsh, or
Englishman to his own land, who has never left his native fields, or town, or hills,
this is no way, either in the one case or the other, militates with their aflections
towards and pride in the British Empire, their common heritage. On the other
hand, again, it must be remembered what a large proportion after all share our home
up-bringing, who on their retum over seas leaven their community with English
sentiments and modes of thought and life. At Edinburgh there are 247 colonial
students, at Cambridge there are no loss than fifty Australians, who, intellectually,
physically, and socially, do more than hold their own. We have had an Australian

M M 2

532 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

which are on a high ridge overlooking Sandhurst and its neigh-
bourhood, we drove away to the chairman's house who kindly
gave us specimens from the diflferent leaseholds on the New
Chum line of reef to carry away with us. In Sandhurst there
are 5,500 miners at the present moment, and of these nearly
800 are Chinese ; there are no less than 775 distinct gold
bearing quartz reefs in the district, the average yield of gold is
over 8 dwts. to the ton of quartz, while at Ballarat it is nearly 7.
Twenty years ago, however, an average of as much as 9 ozs.
per ton was extracted from some quartz on the Bendigo
goldfields. The Sandhurst miner works in " shifts " or watches,
each of eight hours' length, throughout the day and night, and
so the quartz-mining and crushing goes on uninterruptedly for
twenty-four hours a day during six days of the week. Many of
these miners are part owners in the mines. The larger companies
let off pieces of their land to a set of men who form what is called
a tribute company, that is to say, they agree to pay a fixed
proportion of the gold they may extract as tribute to the larger
company. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail. To insure
themselves against any absolutely very heavy losses it is the custom
for two men or more to form a partnership as chums, that is to
say, one man will work without wages in the tribute company and
the other will be working for wages as a miner in the larger company
and earning from £3 a week, and as he can well live on £1, the two
men share the wages earned by one and the results of the venture
made by the other. We were told also of the gambling that went
on in the way of selling and buying the shares in the various gold
mines and claims : the tricks seem just the same as on an ordinary
European stock exchange, and of course while human nature is
what it is, this is only natural. At one place in the course of our
drive we had pointed out to us at the end of one of the avenues
two trees, an oak and another, which were planted in 1863, on the
wedding-day of the Prince and Princess of Wales. These avenues
of trees, mostly eucalyptus, seem to stretch away down all the
streets of the town — a growing town with a look of growing
prosperity about it. We were taken down the Long Gully where
there were a lot of the old-fashioned Robinson Crusoe diggers'
huts, and past the old worked-out gullies on Windmill Hill, and so

senior wrangler, an Australian captain of the boat at the head of the river ; and of
the sixteen men who rowed, in the Oxford and Cambridge crews this year (1886),
four were Australians born.

1881. EDUCATION IN VICTORIA. 533

on to the Benevolent Asylum and the hospital where groups of
state school children were drawn up to sing.

In Victoria, since 1873, every child is compelled to go to school,
where its education may be had free. In the state schools secular
instruction only is given (though the teachers are to deem the
cultivation of a sound moral tone an act of solemn obligation) : the
hours are two at least before noon and two after noon every day. All
children over six and under fifteen are compelled to attend thirty
days in each quarter unless they are sick, or the school is more
than two miles from home, or they produce a certificate that they
receive education up to standard elsewhere. " Truant ofiicers " are
appointed to prosecute parents who neglect the education of their
children. Thus every child in Victoria can receive free instruction
in reading, writing, and arithmetic, drawing, grammar, geography,,
drill, singing, and gymnastics (needlework for girls). If they
want it, besides these, they can have instruction in Latin and
French, by paying a shilling a week for each ; in Euclid, algebra,
and trigonometry for sixpence a week for each ; and in mensuration,
book-keeping, and the elements of natural science at threepence per
week for each. Before the child can leave school it has to obtain a
certificate from the inspector that it has passed the standard required.
Many children attain this by the time they are thirteen, many sharp
boys at nine or ten, but with this result, that they are then lost sight
of by the schoolmaster at a time when they most need to be under
his influence. In January of each year eight exhibitions, each of
35/. and tenable for six years, are open for competition to all scholars
of the 1,900 state schools under fifteen; the holders have to proceed
to the Melbourne University, which is endowed with 9,000/. per
annum by the Colony. The Government build the schools, appoint
and pay the teachers ; in addition to the fixed salary they are also
paid " by results," that is to say, according to the number of children
they pass in the six standards, which are much the same as ours. The
number of teachers in any state school depends on the number of
pupils ; for instance, every school with 100 is obliged to have two
masters and two mistresses whose salary is from 130/. to 80/. per
annum, and so on up to the school of over 1,000, where the first
master receives 360/., the second 230/., and the twelve other
assistant-masters and mistresses in proportion. They must of course
be certificated. It is not an unusual thing for a schoolmaster to be
elected member of the Assembly. From the inspector's reports we
find, however, the same old faults, the same complaints, as we are

634 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

used to at home and oq board the Britannia, They complain that
the teaching has a tendency to become too mechanical, things are
learnt by heart -without being understood, the pupils are at sea when
asked to think for themselves, and often a simple problem is quite
beyond those who can work comparatively difficult questions with
smartness and accuracy : as it is to the interest both of the child,
the teacher, and the parent to cram for the compulsory standard.
But it is a great thing for Victoria to have brought the schools
throughout the colony within reach of almost every little cluster
of families, and to have established so complete a system both of
education and inspection. To supplement the Government re-
quirements the ratepayers in every district elect "Boards of
Advice" from among their number who hold office for three
years. Their duties are to decide what use (if any) is to be
made of the school-house after the regular four school hours;
thus, for instance, if they please they can arrange for religious
or other instruction for the children; they are to report on the
condition of the books and furniture, and, in fact, give any opinion
they please to the Minister of Public Education on the state,
condition, or wants of the school, in any matter whatsoever.
These boards, whose labours are purely honorary, are said much to
add to the popularity of the system. The Roman Catholics
educate in their own private schools nearly 27 per cent., the Jews
nearly 25 per cent., and the Lutherans nearly 11 per cent, of the
whole numbers belonging to their respective denominations. Three
quarters of all the children in Victoria are educated in state
schools, the other quarter in private schools or at home.

At the School of Mines we went into the Institute which, as
usual, possesses a very good library. After the width of the streets
the three things which every Australian town seems to make
good provision for at the very first start are ; first, the devotion of
large open spaces for the public gardens or reserves, when the plan
is first laid down. These give an air of wholesomeness and space,
and are planted out as recreation grounds and botanical gardens.
It was the first Governor of the colony (1853-1854), Mr. Latrobe,
who was the founder of these reserves. He secured the largest
and best sites for parks and recreation grounds as lungs for the
large cities, that he foresaw from the very beginning would spring
up. Secondly, the benevolent institutions — churches, schools,
libraries, and hospitals, and the water supply and the fire
brigades ; the water, for instance, at Sandhurst, is brought from

1881. AT SANDHURST. 535

the Crusoe reservoir six miles to the south. And the third thing
we particularly noticed while in Australia was the fine buildings,
that seemed to bear more than a due proportion to the shops and
private residences both in large and small towns. Of these the
cliief were always the banks. Banks lend money and always require
security ; on this they foreclose, and all over the country are the
stations that belong to this or that bank. The banks set capital
afloat through the country. If the borrower is fortunate, energetic,
able, and industrious he pays his interest, wipes off his debts, and
blesses the banker ; if he is neither one of them the bank eats him
up. They sometimes close their jaws on the squatters and eat one
of these up as well. Squatters with limited capital borrow money
on the security of their station, stock or wool ; if they go too far they
get embarrassed, and the end of embarrassment here, as in the
old country and all the world over, is the same.

At 5.30 P.M. there was a dinner given by the mayor and council
at the Shamrock Hotel. As this house stands at the corner of the
main street its broad verandah which runs on two sides gave us a
good outlook over the crowds of people below. In reply to the
toast of his health by Mr. Robert Clark, M.P., Lord Normanby
said that he " thanked the company for the very enthusiastic manner
in which they had been pleased to receive the toast. He knew
full well that in Victoria a,ud the other Australasian colonies it was
the habit of all subjects of her Majesty to welcome her represent-
ative most cordially when he came amongst them. He knew
equally well that it was not the mere qualities of the individual
who happened to hold the honourable position of her Majesty's
representative which induced that feeling. It was the innate
loyalty and affection entertained by the inhabitants of these
colonies, in common, he believed, with the inhabitants of all
English colonies, towards the throne and the institutions of the
old country which caused them to give a warm reception to the
Governor for the time being. It was a source of sincere satis-
faction to him to be able to-day to bring into this city the two sons
of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, so that they might see
and learn by personal experience the sentiments of loyalty enter-
tained by the colonists towards the Queen and the institutions of
the old country. Loyalty was innate amongst us, but still loyalty
with us was somewhat of a visionary character. At this distance
few of us had an opportunity of beholding the Sovereign or of
seeing any of the Royal Family visibly and bodily amongst us.

536 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

He rejoiced very much that this opportunity haxl arisen to the
Princes now present. They would on their return home to
England, he was sure, inform the Prince and Princess of Wales
and her Majesty that in no part of her dominions had she more
loyal or loving subjects than the people of Victoria. He also
rejoiced that they should have had the opportunity of realising
the marvellous wealth of the Victorian gold-fields, and of forming
some idea of the extent and character of the workings. What
they had seen would impress them with the importance of this
great colony. At the request of their Royal Highnesses he
thanked them for their kind reception, and the mayor for the
hospitable manner in which they had been entertained by him.
He complimented the mayor on the perfection of the day's
arrangements, and the people of Sandhurst on the order, regu-
larity, and good feeling they had maintained. He had seen many
crowds, but no people behaved themselves better when out for
amusement on great occasions, than the inhabitants of Victoria."
His Excellency concluded by proposing the health of the mayor.
After dinner we went off to a ball at the Town Hall, the
illuminations in front of which were even more elaborate and
effective than those at Melbourne. We had, however, to leave
soon after nine for the train back to Melbourne. All the fire
brigades of the place turned out for a giant torchlight procession ;
the men lined the streets on either side, holding lighted torches,
from the Town Hall to the station, and another body of them with
torches also surrounded our carriages, singing in chorus as they
marched along. At the station itself the platform was also lined
by them, and as they were all in uniform and a fine stalwart body
of men, this last glimpse and sound we had of the people of
Sandhurst enthusiastically demonstrating and cheering by the
light of countless torches will long dwell in our memories. It was
midnight when we reached Melbourne.

Forty members of the Liedertafel were good enough to give an
entertainment on board the Bacchante the same evening.

July Qth. — Directly after breakfast down to Sandridge Pier and
off to the Bacchante^ where we found every one very busy preparing
for the afternoon dance, which duly came off at 2 P.M. We danced
every dance, and had the electric light going under the awning as
soon as it was dusk. A number of our old friends (Mr. Lewis, the
Mayor of Ballarat and others) were there. We slept on board and
began to get ready for going on board the Inconstant, We are

1881, WE ARE TO LEAVE THE BACCHANTE. 637

under orders to leave the Bacchante, and it seems very uncertain
when we shall see her again, if at all. The squadron is at present
to go on without her to Sydney, stay five days there, and proceed
thence to Auckland in New Zealand, and so on to Fiji. According
to the programme received from England, a stay of six days is to
be made at Auckland; but the New Zealand authorities have
telegraphed that on account of the small-pox at Sydney the
squadron will have to pass five days in quarantine on arrival at
Auckland ; and the remaining one day will be very short allowance
for seeing New Zealand. It will too be rather cold there, as it is
now midwinter, but we shall pick up the warmth again when we
get into the tropics at Fiji. At one time (as we are obliged to
leave the Bacchante here without her rudder) it was proposed that
we both should go overland from Melbourne to Sydney and
turn aside through Gippsland and see the giant trees, which are
larger even than those in California. We heard of one which after
it had fallen, and without the head, measured 435 feet in length ;
at five feet from the ground it was eighteen feet in diameter : as
it lies it forms a complete bridge over a deep ravine. They stand
in the forests a hundred or more to the acre, and some of them are
fifteen feet in diameter. Having come overland into Victoria at
its western end, through the rich farming districts of Hamilton and
Coleraine, and having seen somewhat of its central and northern
gold fields, we could have wished also to have visited these virgin
forests, at present almost untouched, which clothe the slopes of the
Australian Alps at the eastern end of this colony.

July 7th. — On board all day : in the forenoon exercised at
general quarters and went to school, as we supposed, for the last
time on board the old Ba^cchante under the poop. The Argus pub-
lished this morning, the last we shall be able to buy in Melbourne,
contains the following in one of its leading articles, which we shall
carry away with us and think over. After saying many kind
things of our stay here it goes on : —

" It is probable that in the course of a few years an attempt will
be made to form the various branches of the scattered but united
British family into one vast confederation. As colonies attain in
the matter of wealth and population to the dignity and standing
of nations, it is hardly likely that they will be content with their
present relations to the paramount power. The time will come
sooner or later when a closer union or a formal separation will be
the only alternatives presented for the choice of statesmen. The

R38 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

danger in that day will be that imperial ministers will falter before
the diflSculties of federation, and allow the colonies to go in sheer
despair of grappling successfully with the problem involved in
their retention. The best antidote to despair in that case would
be a profound conviction in the minds of the governing classes of
the enormous value to England of the possessions which would be
surrendered, unless some common modus vivendi could be dis-
covered. It is in spreading the knowledge at home of these two
things, of the importance not only of Victoria but of all the
colonies, and the affectionate loyalty which colonists feel towards
the institutions of the Empire that the Princes, as they grow up,
will be able to do a great deal" — Argus, July 7, 1881.

[It is all very well for people to say now that " no responsible
statesman is in favour of getting rid of the colonies." Such
opinions were all the fashion fifteen or twenty years ago. It was
imagined that the colonist was tied to the Empire by a kind of
chain which he was struggling to break, that his secret aspirations
were for independence, and that Canada and Australia, if only
they were let alone, would take up their freedom " as America
had done." It was not perceived that all the motives which
actuated our thirteen North American colonies to separation were
entirely wanting in the case of both of these groups of colonies, and
that other motives and streams of tendency were setting most
potently in an entirely opposite direction. It appears, for instance,
from Sir Henry Taylor's memoirs that he and his principal
colleagues on the permanent establishment of the Colonial Office
agreed with more than one of their successive chiefs in their wish
to get rid of the self-governing colonies. Lord Sherbrooke was
perhaps the best known Parliamentary advocate of a theory which
was erroneously supposed to be utilitarian. Mr. Cobden would
have extended the process of amputation to India. Of its official
supporters Lord Granville, as Colonial Secretary in the earlier part
of Mr. Gladstones first administration, was the most consistent
and most outspoken. Perhaps his ostentatious indifference to the
continuance of the colonial relation may have tended to produce a
wholesome jealousy and an ultimate reaction. From that time,
the colonies have uniformly resented any hint that they were at
liberty to declare their independence. It is strange that the
professed economists and utilitarians who formerly inclined to the
separation of the great colonies from the Empire, should have
overlooked the invariable tendency of common allegiance to pro-

1881. IMPERIAL FEDERATION. 539

mote commercial relations. Notwithstanding the protective tarififs
with which these democracies, like all others, have fenced them-
selves, our trade with the colonies is far larger in proportion to
their population than that with any other civilised community. The
trade which England carries on with her colonies is by far the most
healthy branch of her commerce. That with foreign countries is
declining, that with her colonies grows and flourishes steadily. For
their wants contribute directly to stimulate and foster the native
industries at home, and their products no less directly go to swell
and strengthen the sources of the national power. This commerce,
in fact, is essentially distinct from all other, as being a natiural
circulation of blood between the heart and the members of one body.
Turning to the Australasian statistics for 1882 we find that the
imports of Victoria alone in that year were nearly 19,000,000^., and
her exports 16,000,000/., not very far short of three times the
amount of that whole export trade of England which Burke, in 1782,
declared to excite the envy of the world. Similarly, if we take
the total trade, import and export of Australasia, we find that it
amounted at the same date of 1882 to 114,477,694/.; the total
import and export trade of Great Britain at the accession of her
Majesty was about 98,000,000/. The seven Australasian colonies
occupy an area of 3,075,406 square miles, a territory which is three
times the extent of Europe west of the Vistula, and is inhabited by
about 3,000,000 persons of British descent ; they have a revenue of
nearly 22,000,000/. a year, or a quarter of our own.

It is a question of the most vital importance not merely to
England, but to the human race, under what moral and predominant
influences this rising civilisation and these vigorous offshoots of our
parent stem are to be developed, and it contributes no little to our
faith in the destiny of the British race and to the warmth of an
intelligent patriotism to watch and observe that the laws which
govern the growth and development of states as political organisms
are just as fixed and determined as are those which govern the
growth and development of the individuals which compose them.

A statesman can create nothing new. If either intuitively or by
study he recognises the action of these laws, he can, by shaping his
policy in accordance with them, achieve vast and permanently
advantageous results. If, on the contrary, he is blind to their
operation, or elects to follow his own or others* preconceived
opinions, as to what ought to be, he will accomplish nothing really
great or permanent ; and though he may meet with a short-lived

540 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 18S1.

applause from his party followers, he will often work vast mischief
— nay, even ruin. When this is palpable, his faithful foUowera,
admiring his conscientious motives, lament, without perceiving the
irony of the situation, that he was " the victim of circumstances."

In the present state of political science it may be impossible, it is
true, to formulate more than certain leading laws of development ;
but year by year students of history are becoming better enabled,
from a classified observation of facts, to trace the thread of their
unvarying operation.

One such observation is that representative government in this
century tends invariably to federation. The causes that induce this
result are naturally various, but the result is undoubted.

One hundred years ago the only federal collection of states
founded on representative government was Switzerland. Each
canton had (and still has) its own legislative assembly, with a
franchise as various as the number of cantons. But besides these
there has always existed the central representative authority for
common purposes in the Federal Assembly at Berne.

In 1787, when our thirteen North American colonies were driven
to assert their independence by the unwisdom of the Home Govern-
ment, each had its own two houses of local parliament, with the
franchise varying in each colony. Each of them retained, as each
of the thirty-eight states now in the Union retains to this day, its
own local parliament for Home Rule. The two houses of the central
federal parliament sit at Washington to manage all matters of
common Imperial concern.

In 1821 the Spanish colonies in Central America threw ofiF the
yoke of Spain, and formed themselves into a confederation. Their
union did not last more than fourteen years, though most of them
still exist as separate states. That the outcome of their effort
after federal union was abortive resulted from the defective nature
of the representative government they enjoyed. Nine states, how-
ever, are still federally united in Columbia ; here too besides the
central federal assembly, each State has its own local legislature.

In South America, the Argentine Confederation, with its fourteen
provinces, is another instance of the action of the same law. At
Buenos Aires sit the two federal houses, with central "authority.
In the fourteen provinces are the same number of provincial legis-
latures, each with all the privileges of Home Rule (pp. 295, 296).

If it be pleaded that anything done in America is only an
imitation of the United States, we may turn to Europe. Imperial

1881. IMPERIAL FEDERATION. 5U

Germany has certainly not consciously imitated Republican
America. Nevertheless, since 1871, the four kingdoms, the six
grand duchies, the five duchies, the seven principalities, and the
three free towns, have been united under a federal constitution.
Each of these kingdoms and duchies has its own local parliament,
generally of two chambers, for the management of its own aflfairs.
At Berlin a federal parliament of two houses meets for the purpose
of Imperial legislation : the lower elected on the basis of manhood
suffirage.

Since 1867 the seventeen provinces of Austria have each their
local parliament of one chamber. The central parliament of the
Austrian Empire consists of two houses, and sits at Vienna.

Further east we come upon the various Sclav States in the
Balkan peninsula. It is impossible to predict anything absolutely
certain of their future, owing to the disturbing influences at work
from the exterior. But their tendency to federalise is very mani-
fest, spite of mutual jealousies and of the two great Sclav powers,
the twin rivals for the hegemony of such federal union.

But, after all, Great Britain, as might be expected, has been
more prolific of federal constitutions than perhaps any other race or
nation. In all directions — west, north, south, and east — federalism
is the universal panacea recommended by the British Colonial Office.
To each group of colonies the advice tendered by Liberal and
Conservative administrations has alike been "Federate, federate,
federate." Wherever the representative government has been
healthy and vigorous the federation has been successful. Wherever
such ventures have failed it has been owing to the feebleness or the
unreality of the ostensibly representative governments that were to
be united ; or because the people who chose their representatives
were not trained in the habits of freedom and self-government.

Since 1871 the seven independent colonies of the Leeward
Islands in the West Indies have been formed by Act of the
Imperial British Parliament into a federation. The central
federal parliament consists of two houses ; but each of the seven
colonies has still its own legislature for local purposes (p. 135).

Each of the colonies forming the group of the Windward Islands
has also its own legislature, and it is now hoped to form them into
another federal group.

These two federations in the West Indies are, however, only
preliminary stepping-stones to the ultimate federation of the whole
of the British West Indian possessions.

542 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

In 1867 the seven independent colonies of the Canadian
DomiDion were federated by Act of Imperial Parliament sitting at
Westminster, Each of the seven colonies retains its local parlia-
ment ; and from the whole population members are elected to serve
in the federal parliament of two houses that meet at Ottawa.

At the Cape of Good Hope both Lord Kimberley and Lord
Carnarvon have recommended and pressed federation upon the
colonists. But the material of which these colonies are composed
is so diverse — two of them being Dutch Republics, and two of
them English Colonies (of which one is a Crown Colony, and the
other has representative institutions) — that it has hitherto been
found impossible to carry out the aspirations of English politicians,
and to federate (pp. 373, 422).

On Australia, again, federation has repeatedly been pressed by the
Home Government. Lord Derby succeeded last year in passing a
Eill through the Imperial Parliament permitting the eight colonies
of Australasia to federate. But the present scheme is confessedly
only a sort of half-way house. Each colony, of course, retains its
own local parliament ; but no central federal parliament is proposed
at present, only a council of Ministers delegated from each colony.
Three of the greatest colonies in Australasia — New South Wales,
New Zealand, and South Australia — decline to have anything to
do with the inchoate scheme.

Meanwhile, both in Great Britain and Ireland, a tendency
towards federalism has no less surely developed itself, which is
none the less worthy of remark, inasmuch as to many who
have furthered it the full significance of the fact has not been
sufficiently perceived. Nevertheless, in each portion of the
United Kingdom the working of this law of organic growth
is manifest. It has long been apparent that the legislative
work attempted by the House of Commons was too huge for
such an assembly satisfactorily to acccomplish ; and the ** weary
Titan " has for several years been seeking ways to devolve on local
bodies the settlement of local affairs. Sir William Harcourt's
Bill for establishing a municipality for London would have
set up a Home Rule Parliament for London ; all the subjects
on which that body was to legislate were almost precisely the
same (with the exception of public worship) which are generally
legislated upon by local parliaments. The Scotch desire for the
establishment of a Secretary of State for Scotland, to facilitate the
settlement of Scotch affairs, was but another example of the

1881. IMPERIAL FEDERATION. 543

working of the same tendency, and of the necessity of separating
local from imperial questions ; and the speeches of leading
Scotchmen at many of the meetings held to advance that project
went even so far as to advocate the restoration of a local and
national assembly in the old Parliament House in Edinburgh.
In Wales, again, the strivings of local political life and the craving
for Welsh affairs to be settled by Welshmen has been becoming
yearly more apparent. The extension of local self-government in
England by means of councils, boards, parliaments, (it matters not
by what name such bodies are called), has for some considerable
period been advocated by politicians of both parties. The Irish
movement in favour of Home Rule has made most noise and has
for various accidental reasons attracted more attention, perhaps,
than these others ; but in reality it is only an example in strongly
accentuated form of the development of this law of political
growth. Its treatment only becomes baneful when it is handled
blindly and without a perception of the wide issues involved.
Whenever these are grasped, the granting of local self-government
has ever led to union, not disintegration of empire. The late
Mr. Forster, than whom there was no more steadfast upholder of
Imperial Union, in his speech to his constituents at Bradford,
August 2nd, 1885, said : " I am in favour of a very wide measure of
local government. I would give local government to Ireland as I
would to England and Scotland," and the difficulties in the way of
so doing vanish when once the broad difference between local and
imperial questions is clearly applied.

In the colonies, on the other hand, which already enjoy a local
representative government, a no less remarkable tendency towards
imperial federation has developed itself within the last few years,
which, being synchronous with the tendency towards local decen-
tralisation in the mother country, is one of the surest signs of their
forming part with her of one organic whole which is thus healthily
growing and developing in accordance with the laws of nature.
Colonial statesmen have felt that all the arguments which have
been impressed upon them with such unction by successive British
ministers as to the desirability of local federation, apply to imperial
federation with tenfold force. The Imperial Federation League
was formed in July, 1884, "to secure the unity of the Empire by
some form of federation." Mr. Service, the Premier of Victoria,
writing on November 20, 1884, to the agent-general of that colony
in London, instructed him to give a general support to this

544 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

movement for imperial federation, and set forth the considerations
which had influenced him in forwarding this instruction. He
says: —

*' The chief of those considerations is the very anomalous position
which these colonies occupy as regards respectively local govern-
ment and the exercise of imperial authority. In relation to the
first, the fullest measure of constitutional freedom and parlia-
mentary representation has been conceded to the more important
colonies: but as regards the second, we have no representation
whatever in the imperial system. Subjects of this part of the
empire may be deeply interested in the action, or it may be the
inaction of the imperial authorities ; but they have no voice nor
vote in those councils of the empire to which her Majesty's
ministers are responsible ; thus in all matters in which the exercise
of the imperial authority has interests for them, that authority
is, to all intents and purposes, an unqualified autocracy — on the
one hand we are under constitutional Government, on the other
under an antiquated autocracy or bureaucracy. The weakness of
this position has at times been most disadvantageously apparent,
and its humiliation keenly felt,"

The agent-general of New South Wales was also authorised by
his Government to act upon the Committee of the League. The
New Zealand House of Representatives voted, without a division,
resolutions which substantially contain the programme of the
League. And it is a noteworthy fact that, when the scheme for
Australasian federation was introduced into the New Zealand
Parliament, both those who advocated and those who opposed it
were in favour of imperial federation, and argued, the one side,
that the proposed scheme would further, the other side that it
would retard, a result which both alike deemed desirable. In
Tasmania, Queensland, and South Australia a large number of the
principal residents have declared themselves in favour of a closer
union of the Empire. The League in Canada reckons among its
members sixty members of the Dominion Houses of Parliament,
besides a large number of judges. Government officials, professors,
merchants, and others, and it has branches, in Montreal, Toronto,
Victoria, and elsewhere.

The first annual report of the Imperial Federation League is a
striking record of progress. There are not many movements, the
advocates of which have been able to boast that in a little more
than a year their principles had spread all round the world. Yet

1881. IMPERIAL FEDERATION. 545

this is literally true of the Imperial Federation League. Obviously
the first step towards a closer union of the Empire is to produce,
in all the parts, the desire for nearer alliance. The first year s work
of the Imperial Federation League has produced ample proof that
this desire exists, that it is growing, and that it will continue to
grow. It is from the colonies themselves that the first attempts
towards putting the desire into tangible shape must come ; and it
is in the colonies that the greatest success has attended the
operations of the League. Every true Briton is proud of the
British Empire, and desires that its shadow, under which freedom
everywhere flourishes, may never grow less ; and the Britons of
Great Britain are more and more sharing the feeling. There are
close upon one hundred members of the present House of Commons
on the General Committee of the League, but these are not
supposed to be anything near the complete number who are in
favour of a closer union with the colonies on a basis of federation.

It has been objected to the Imperial Federation League that
they have put forward no precisely formularised scheme of
federalism. We might as well talk of a formulated scheme for
promoting the blooming of roses. Each rose has its own stalk,
leaves, petals, stamens, and other constituent parts. Their colour
may vary, but the constituent parts in all roses are the same. So
in those federations, which are an outcome of representative
government, all have their central legislature of two houses, and
each federated state or province or kingdom or colony or duchy or
principality has, besides, its own local parliament for Home Rule.
The subjects with which these local parliaments deal are very
nearly the same in every case ; they are all matters relating to
public worship, education, agriculture, land, police, justice, trade
and industry, roads and railways ; and those which are reserved
for the central authority, whether Republican, Imperial, or
Monarchical, are also everywhere similar. It is, of course, an
irrelevant circumstance whether the head of the executive of such
a federation be called Emperor as in Germany, President as in
America or Switzerland, or King as in the British Empire.

If, therefore, the British Federation develops itself in the same
way as all preceding federations founded on representative govern-
ment have done, there will be two Houses of the Imperial Parlia-
ment still sitting at Westminster, with all the supreme powers
over every portion of the British Empire which they now
possess, intact and inviolable. And, as the Reform Bill carried

VOL. I. N N

546 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

last year approximated to the principle of apportioning members
according to population, our new Reform Bill, granting the
franchise to the Canadians and Australians, would naturally be
drawn on the same lines. At present, the ratio of members in the
Imperial Parliament is, roughly speaking, one member to every
50,000 inhabitants of these islands. This is about the proportion
which would be probably retained for local parliaments in England,
Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, to whom the House of Commons would
delegate, as it has already delegated to the Colonial Parliaments, the
legislation regarding all local matters. But for the Imperial Parlia-
ment the convenient ratio would be one member for every 150,000
inhabitants, as it is at present both in Glermany and America.
This would give a reformed House of Commons of about 300
members, a far more convenient assembly in every way than the
present 670 for the discussion of strictly Imperial aflFairs. The
25,000,000 of England would thus be represented by 160 members,
the 4,000,000 of Scotland by about twenty-six, the 4,000,000 of
Australasia by another twenty-six, the 5,000,000 of Ireland by about
thirty-three, and the 5,000,000 of Canada by another thirty-three,
the 2,000,000 of Wales by about ten. Having devolved all local
matters upon the local parliaments, the reformed House of Commons
would only have Imperial questions to deal with. Such are, of
course, all matters which belong to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
the Admiralty, the War OflSce, the Post Office, and the Civil List,
India, and the Crown Colonies. As the number of members would
be proportioned to the number of inhabitants, so also would the
quota which each nation, province, or colony, paid to the Imperial
revenue. At the present time, Scotland and Australasia would
contribute about the same amount — i.e. less than a sixth of the
English quota ; whilst Canada and Ireland would respectively
contribute one-fifth of the English quota. Man for man, burdens
and privileges would be equally distributed among all British
subjects admitted to the franchise. The only basis on which we in
these islands could consent to admit our fellow-countrymen in
Canada and Australasia to a share in our privileges, or on which
they could honourably consent to assume a portion of our re-
sponsibilities and burdens, would be that of absolute equality. But
it would, of course, be quite like running after an ignis fatutts to
suppose it would be possible to raise the necessary Imperial revenue
by customs and excise. All our local colonial parliaments have
already absolute power to fix their own tariffs, and it would be

1881. . IMPERIAL FEDERATION. 647

utterly impossible to curtail such powers. And, besides, the wisest
course that can be taken in order to secure the ultimate success of
the principles of free trade, is to allow each province which may
be so disposed, to try the experiment of protection. Moreover, in
the two instances in which federal states have raised the Imperial
revenue from this source, the result has not been altogether
satisfactory. Germany has not found this source of revenue
sufiScient, and each State in the German Federation has annually
found itself compelled to supplement its quota by other means.
The annual charge on our national debt last year was over
28,000,000Z. Such a charge the incoming partners under the
British Federation could not be invited to share, but it would be
more than met by the allocation of our own customs and excise,
if maintained at their present figure only, which last year amounted
to more than 46,000,000Z. There will thus be a very large surplus
for the more rapid reduction of the debt. The other sources of
revenue — stamps, 11,000,000/. ; post office, 8,000,000/.; telegraphs,
2,000,000/, — as easiest of collection for Imperial ends in Canada
and Australasia, would still be available for Imperial purposes. It
has been computed by one of their own Ministers that the share
which the inhabitants of New South Wales, for example, would
contribute to the Imperial revenue would be more than met by an
income-tax in that colony of a halfpenny in the pound ; whilst a
Canadian Premier has estimated that one halfpenny levied on
every ton of Canadian shipping leaving their ports would amply
suffice for the Canadian share. And both these calculations are
certainly rather over than under the mark, as to the extent of
the new financial burdens which Canada and Australia would be
called upon to bear. For it must be remembered that all grants
in aid which are now made from the Imperial revenue for local
purposes would at once cease entirely on the establishment of local
parliaments in the United Kingdom. These would have full
authority to raise all sums required for local purposes, and, there-
fore, although the land, house, and income-tax must be struck off
from the sources of Imperial revenue, on the other hand there will
be a corresponding reduction on the side of Imperial expenditure.
With regard to the plausible difficulties in the way of Imperial
Federation which have been suggested, based upon the separation of
the various parts of the British Federal Union by distance, or by lack
of community of interest, it is sufficient here to observe, as regards
the first, that it is now possible to travel from the shores of the

N N 2

548 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

Pacific to Westminster in a shorter time than it took the members
for Orkney and Shetland to come to London in the time of the
union with Scotland ; while for deliberative purposes distance has
been absolutely annihilated by the telegraph. And, as regards the
secoQd, the action of Australia and Canada generally in such a
deplorable business as that of the Soudan, has practically disposed
of the assumed want of interest on the part of our colonies in
Imperial matters. In fact, the more attentively the subject is
examined, the more the solidarity of their interests and ours
becomes apparent.

There are but two cardinal principles to be borne in mind in
dealing with this question. Let them be once accepted, and com-
paratively little trouble will be given by the details. The first is
that the people of Australia and of Canada are bone of our bone
and flesh of our flesh, and must be regarded as much our own people
as the people of Surrey, Radnor, Midlothian, or Dublin. They
have but changed the sky under which they live and breathe ; they
have not changed their race, their manners, their religion, nor their
mental characteristics. The second is that the power of their present
local legislatures must remain absolutely intact and inviolable. The
colonies enjoy Local self-government, we must give them a share
in the Imperial; in order to do that we must first give our-
selves local self-government such as we have given to them. A
local government bill, and a new reform bill must be passed by the
Imperial Parliament. As nearly all the candidates in the recent
elections, however divergent might be their professions of faith in
other respects, agreed in repeating the stock phrase that " they
wished to draw closer the bonds of union between the mother-
country and her colonies," and that they " advocated lai'ge measures
of local self-government," the realisation of the ideal of Imperial
Federation is near, even " at the doors." For it is the outcome of
many laws all tending in the same direction ; this has accelerated
its advent and this has made its near adoption sure and certain,
whatever statesman holds the helm.

In the lifetime of those who have attained middle age two great
works have been accomplished in the world which far transcend all
others in importance, and of which it is probably no exaggeration
to say that the memory can never pass while the human race
remains upon this planet. One of them, which is connected with
the great name of Cavour, was the movement of unification by
which the old and illustrious, but weak because divided. States of

1881. IMPERIAL FEDERATION. 549

Italy were drawn together and fused into one great and prosperous
kingdom. The other, which is chiefly connected with the name of
Bismarck, was that movement of unification which has made
Germany the mo^t powerful nation upon the Continent. A third,
which may one day be thought the most important of the three,
will be due much less to the genius of any statesman than to
the patriotism and courage of a great democracy. The principle
of federation, triumphantly vindicated by the other branches of
the Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon race, by the democracies of America,
of Germany, and of the Svdss Republic, and successfully adopted in
the internal government of several groups of our colonies, will soon
be recognised as the only means whereby Imperial unity can be
<3onciliated with local independence, and will achieve its crowning
victory when it sets on a sure and firm basis the union of Great
and Greater Britain, by the will and loyalty to each other of the
great mass of Englishmen whose ideal is that their country and
race may be true to its great mission, and that each succeeding
year may add to the usefulness and weight of the influence which
they will thus be able to exert in favour of peace, liberty and
progress, throughout the world.] ^

We landed and went up to Government House for dinner at
7 P.M. Sir William Clarke has sent us both a rug made of
platypus skins ; each skin is worth a couple of guineas. This
queer-looking little animal is becoming rarer every year in
Australia now ; he is still found in some of the rivers of Gippsland
in the south-eastern part of Victoria, as well as in those of the
northern parts of Queensland. He is quite a survival of
ancient days ; he has a duck's bill, the body of a large water-rat,
and webbed feet. His structure diSei-s from that of all other
beasts, and comes nearest to that of a bird and reptile. His bony
breast and the formation of his brain and earbones are exactly like
those of a bird, and so is the structure of his heart ; this last,
Professor Huxley says, is more like that of a crocodile. At 9 p.m.
the Governor's ball began in the state ball-room, to which fifteen
hundred people came, amongst others the Italian oflBcers from the
Europa, which has lately come in from Sydney. Just after dancing

* Almost the last words which Mr. Forster spoke in public were : **You know
if there is one thing I hope to live for — to take part in political action some years
hence — it is in the nope before I die that I may see the British Empire existinjj all
the world over, the children she has sent forth themselves self-froveming communities,
united with her in a bond of i^eace which shall be an example to the world."

550 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

began part of the cornice on the western side of the room came
down with a bang : it hurt nobody, but part of it, unfortunately,
fell on to the head of an officer of the Public Works Department,
under whose care the room was. We danced every one of the
nineteen dances, and stopped to the very end, at 3.15 A.M:. It was
a beautiful ball.

July Sth, Friday. — Left Government House directly after break-
fast. We much felt saying good-bye to Lord and Lady Normanby
after all their very great kindness to us both during our ten days'
stay in bright Victoria. We drove down to the Sandridge town
pier, went straight oflf to the Bdcchante, packed up our things
there, and went on board the Inconstant in time for dinner at
twelve. She weighed under steam about 3 P.M. ts'ith all the
squadron in company, except the Bacchante, which remains behind
for her rudder. It was a bright moonlight night when we passed
out through the Heads and away from Port Phillip at 12.30. The
Bay of Port Phillip, thirty miles long by forty broad, is shut in by
Queenscliff on the west and Point Nepean on the east. There is
a strong tide rip between them, and they are both being fortified
by the colony in accordance with Sir W. Jervois's recommendation,
with an armament of from ten to fifteen guns, many of them of large
calibre mounted on the MoncriefiF system. In the tideway outside
there was a slight swell, and two of the wardroom officers having
left their scuttles open had their cabins " washed out." We sleep
in cots slung on the main deck, behind a canvas screen, and go
to wash and dress in Prince Louis's cabin in the steerage, as we
have not our chests on board. Mr. Blake has changed cabins with
Mr. Dalton, and gone to the Bacchante as chaplain. After a week
at Sydney we are to go to Auckland, New Zealand, and are timed
to arrive at Fiji on August 18th.

MELBOURNE TO SYDNEY.

July 9th. — Soon after midnight made plain sail, but did not get
the screw up till 8.15 A.M., a fine sunny morning with a nice breeze
from the south-west, thermometer 50^ All the squadron under sail
going about six knots, and so we feel quite natural again, but there
is a strange feeling being in a dififerent ship of the squadron. In the
first watch passed through Bass Straits, and close in shore, within
half a mile of the light on Wilson's promontory. It was another
beautiful moonlight night, and there was very little wind as we

.1881. WE MEET THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. 551

sailed slowly along between the islands, but it was very pleasant
on the forecastle.

July 10th. — ^A fine day, but going very slowly, no wind. At divi-
sions on Sunday in the flagship the midshipmen have to wear tail-
coats and dirks. Had the usual service, but the men do not sing so
well as in the Bacchante. Towards evening we are nearly becalmed.

July 11th, — At 4 A.M. the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows.
A strange red light as of a phantom ship all aglow, in the midst of
which light the masts, spars, and sails of a brig 200 yards distant
stood out in strong relief as she came up o;i the port bow. The
look-out man on the forecastle reported her as close on the port
bow, where also the officer of the watch from the bridge clearly saw
her, as did also the quarterdeck midshipman, who was sent forward
at once to the forecastle ; but on arriving there no vestige nor any
sign whatever of any material ship was to be seen either near or
right away to the horizon, the night being clear and the sea calm.
Thirteen persons altogether saw her, but whether it was Van
JHemen or the Flying Dutchman or who else must remain unknown.

** Traft ihr das Schiff im Meere an
Blutroth die Seeel, schwarz der Mast I
Auf holiem Bora der bleiclie Mann
Des Schilfes Herr. wacht ohne Rast
Hui !— Wie Sauft der Wind I— Johohe !
Hui !— Wie pfeift's im Tau !— Johohe !
Hui ! — Wie ein Pfeil fliegt er Wn,
Ohue Ziel, ohne Rast, ohne Ruh ! "

The Tourmaline and Cleopatra, who were sailing on our starboard
bow, flashed to ask whether we had seen the strange red light.
At 6.15 A.M. observed land (Mount Diana) to the north-east. At
10.45 A.M. the ordinary seaman who had this morning reported
the laying Dutchmian fell from the foretopmast crosstrees on to
the topgallant forecastle and was smashed to atoms. At 4.15 p.m.
after quarters we hove to with the headyards aback, and he was
buried in the sea. He was a smart royal yardman, and one of
the most promising young hands in the ship, and every one feels
quite sad at his loss. (At the next port we came to the Admiral
also was smitten down). The midshipmen's half-yearly examina-
tion began to-day with the Algebra paper.

July 12th. — The wind has freshened and gone round from the
south-west to the south-east, and in the afternoon we are going along
a steady eight knots. It has been raining off and on all day. Had
Euclid examination paper to-day. Before tea the sea had got up
rather, and we were rolling a little.

552 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

Jidi/ ISth, — Trigonometry paper to-day; we are rolUng a goo<l
deal more, but going along steadily over nine knots ; it is blowing
seven from the south and therefore the wind is nearly aft ; the sea
is getting up though it is fine overhead. After evening quarters
we took in three reefs in the topsails and got the screw down. At
5.30 P.M. we sighted the entrance to Port Jackson, and then hauled
to the wind and stood ofif the land so as not to get in till to-morrow
morning.

Jul}/ 14fth, — Soon after midnight wore ship and stood in for the
land. At 6 A.M. furled sails and commenced steaming. At 8.30 A.H.
came through the Heads into Port Jackson, a broad entrance to
what Captain Cook described " as without exception the finest and
most extensive harbour in the universe, and at the same time
the most secure, being safe from all the winds that blow. In
a word Port Jackson would aflford sufficient anchorage for all the
navies of Europe " (March 26th, 1787). Its area is about twelve
square miles, with deep water in every part. We pass no end of
hills and promontories studded with villas and covered with woods.
At 9.15 A.M. moored in Farm Cove, finding here H.M.S. Wolverine,
Commodore Wilson. Practical navigation examination paper
this morning. The Admiral called on the Governor at 11 A.M.
The Governor returned the Admiral's call at 3.15 P.M. When
he came on board the Inconstant manned yards, and saluted
him on leaving with seventeen guns. In tlie afternoon we both
went ashore and walked up through the garden to Government
House and saw Lord and Lady Augustus Loftus, and afterwards
walked in the Botanical Gardens where there are some beautiful
trees and shrubs ; the whole is well laid out, and the most made of
a charming site that slopes down to the water's edge, but the gardens
themselves do not seem equal to those at Melbourne or Adelaide.

July 15th. — St. Swithin's Day. Had another practical navigation
paper in the forenoon. Left the Inconstant at 1.30 P.M. in the ordi-
nary officers' boat and landed at the stone steps under Fort Macquarie,
and walked up through the garden to Government House, a large
building in quasi-Tudor style at the top of the slope among the
trees ; saw Lord Augustus Loftus, the Governor, and in the large
hall a series of full-length portraits of his predecessors, from Sir
Thomas Brisbane to the Earl of Belmore. Sir George Gipps was
the Governor in 1844, when the house was first occupied. George IIL
and Queen Charlotte lead oflF the series ; in pretty nearly every
colony, both in the West Indies and elsewhere, we have found

1881. ABOUT IN SYDNEY. 553

copies of Sir Joshua Reynolds's pictures of these two, the originals
of which belong to the Academy. Under that king the first British
colonial empire was lost, and the second one founded. We left the
domain grounds and went first down Bridge Street, passing the
Treasury buildings on the left-hand side, built in handsome brown
sandstone and the semi-classic style usual in this hemisphere.^

AT SYDNEY.

The modem city of Sydney lies on the south side of the harbour ;
with the suburbs it extends about six miles east and west, and four
miles north and south It is very irregular in form, and the ground
it covers is of various elevations. The chief business part, however,
and most of the quays and warehouses are around the shores of
Darling Harbour, the largest and the most western of the four bays
that eat into the city's northern side. Of these, next to Darling
Harbour eastward comes Sydney Cove (where the first settlers
established themselves in 1788, under Captain Phillip, who named
the place after Lord Sydney, one of Pitt's ministry in that year),
and round the head of this bay runs the celebrated Circular Quay;
Dawes Point and Battery form its western horn, and on its eastern
stands Fort Macquarie. A little south of this fort, but on the
same eastern horn which juts out like a promontory, stands Govern-
ment House, occupying with its grounds all the space between
Sydney Cove and the third of the four bays, Farm Cove. Bound the
shore of this last stretch the Botanical Gardens right up to Lady
Macquarie's chair, which is the rock-hewn seat at the end of the
promontory which separates Farm Cove from the next and last of the
four bays, Woolomoloo. Behind the Botanical Gardens and south of
them extend the Domain grounds ; on the higher part of these rise
the Exhibition Buildings : they are all laid out with broad walks
and terraces, something like those round the Crystal Palace at
Sydenham, only that this glass palace stands four square, facing
out on the north side to Port Jackson and on the other to the city,
which is immediately behind it on the south. Further back again,
and eating still more into the very heart of the town, extends the
oblong reserve called Hyde Park, with its avenues and broad walks ;

' These, as well as the banks, insurance offices, and warehouses, ranging from four
to fiye storeys high, are built of the same stone, which can be worked easily, and
hardens by exposure to the air ; thus the exteriors of the new buildings can be
decorated readily. The fluted columns of this stone are particularly striking, as also
are some of the floral decorations, which the stone shows up very clearly.

554 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

and on either side of this open space, as well as away to the south of
it, stretches the city of Sydney — its greatest length is four miles and
its breadth three ; the population is over 180,000 (one-seventh of
the whole colony), more than Hull and nearly as many as Bristol.
The streets have somehow an oldish look about them, most of them
are narrower than those at Melbourne.

After coming down the slope of Bridge Street we turned to the
left into George Street, the main thoroughfare of the city, and the
oldest street in Sydney. It is over three miles in length, and starts
right away from the Circulai- Quay almost due south ; it was named
after King George III. Parallel to it and also running up from
the circular quay right through Sydney to the railway station is
the other chief street of the city, named after his great Minister,
Pitt. The earliest map of Sydney was made in 1802, by the
captain of a French surveying ship by order of Napoleon, who
had an eye on Australia and called that part of the land which
has since been called Victoria after his own name, Terre Napoleon.
On this map the circular quay at the end of Sydney Cove, the
"Village de Brickfield," and George and Pitt Streets are marked,
but no others. We walked up the whole length of George Street
to the Town Hall and St. Andrew's Cathedral, which stand side
by side in an open space that was once the cemetery, one-third
of a mile outside the town, of which at the present moment they
are the heart and centre. The cathedral is entirely built of rich
brown sandstone, and stands fronting the street with its two square
towers at the west end of the nave. It is (we were told) 160 feet
long and 62 feet broad, the north and south transepts are 110 feet
long, altogether about the size of St. George's Chapel, Windsor. It
was begun in 1819 by Governor Macquarie on a site where then
there could have been no congregation out in the bush. At that
time New South Wales was in the diocese of Calcutta, and no
bishop was heard of here till 1836, when Archdeacon Broughton
was consecrated ; by that time the population had much increased,
and the cathedral, of which only the foundations then existed, and
which was to have been in red brick and in the Georgian style, was
henceforth designed to be a copy of St. Mary's Church at Oxford,
only with the addition of the square tower of Magdalen College at
its western end. The old foundation stone that had been laid by
Governor Macquarie was taken up, and in order to widen George
Street, shifted further to the eastward and relaid by Governor
Bourke in 1837. The building was to consist of seven bays (three

1881. ST. ANDREWS CATHEDRAL. 555

for the choir, one for the transept, and three for the nave). It was
not, however, till 1850, when the six bishops of the ecclesiastical
province of Australasia were together in Sydney for conference with
their metropolitan, that anything like a serious start was made in the
building which had then been thirty-one years already in hand. Six
pillars in the nave were then each named after one of these " pillars
of the Church," and bear their names on stone scrolls ; they are
in order, Bishop Broughton (Metropolitan) of Sydney, G. A. Selwyn
of New Zealand, F. R. Nixon of Tasmania, Aug. Short of Adelaide,
C. Perry of Melbourne, and W. Tyrrell of Newcastle.^ The walls,
however, were not completed till 1857, and then they stood some time
longer without a roof ; but four years later all the twenty-six windows
were filled with stained glass by individual colonists. The east
window is to the memory of Bishop Broughton, whose figure, robed
and reclining, is now placed in the north aisle of the choir ; it is
an exact facsimile of his monument in Canterbury Cathedral ; the
strong, square head with the keen and sensitive features shows
that the first Australasian Metropolitan was as much a states-
man as an ecclesiastic. The windows on the south side of the
nave represent the Saviours mii*acles, those on the north His
parables ; the two western windows His Transfiguration and His
Baptism ; the two eastern His Last Supper with the disciples and
His Resurrection. Those on the north side of the choir set out the
events of His childhood and boyhood, and those on the south the
events after His Crucifixion. The great west window is filled with
the apostles and their comrades. On January -28th, 1868, the
Duke of Edinburgh visited the building, and again, privately, on
April 4th of the same year, after he had recovered from the eflFects of
the shot at Clontarf (which kept him confined to the house for only
ten days), when he laid the foundation stone of the neighbouring
Town Hall ; but it was not till St. Andrew's day (November 30th)
of the same year that the cathedral was ready for its consecration.
The floors of marble, and the oak-carved fittings for the choir, the
organ in the south transept, by Hill and Son, of London, were then
all in their places. The font was subscribed for by school children

^ To these five Buffragans haye since been added seyen more, they are : the
Bishops of Ballarat, Butliurst, Brisbane, Grafton, Goulburn, North Queensland, and
Perth. All State aid was withdrawn from religion in New South W^ales in 1862.
Up to that time it had been granted to Anglicans, Wcsleyans, Roman Catholics, and
Presbyterians. The Bishop of Sydney's salary is about 2,500Z. per annum, that of
the Bishop of Melbourne is 1,500/. ; the other sees in Australia haye been endowed
by priyate persons with an average of 600/. a year. The stipends of the clergy
ayerage 300/. a year.

556 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

in memory of Prince Alfred's visit. All round the walls in the
interior and beneath the windows in the nave runs an arrangement
of encaustic tiling set in marble ; on the upper tier of this are the
tablets, lozenge-shaped and otherwise, for inscriptions in memory
of the dead — several are already occupied. The adjoining Deanery,
standing back between the Cathedral and Town Hall, was built
in 1872 ; the two western towers (which at Bishop Selwyn's sug-
gestion had been substituted for the one large Magdalen tower)
were completed in 1874. We are surprised to hear that the whole
cathedral cost only 60,000Z., for though it occupied so long a time
in its erection it is now the most complete cathedral of the English
Church in the southern hemisphere. It is endowed with property
producing about 900/. a year.

There are in the city eleven other churches belonging to the
Church of England, seven Presbyterian (Scotch), six Roman
Catholic (Irish), four Baptist, three Wesleyan, two Congregational,
two Primitive Methodist, and one Jewish synagogue. The Con-
gregational church in Pitt Street, though plain on the outside, is
said to be " the most commodious" place of worship in the colony ;
it will seat, galleries and all, one thousand seven hundred and
eighty-eight people. Though the churches and ministers of the
Church of England far outnumber those of any other one Christian
denomination in the colony, yet they are outnumbered in the ag-
gregate by these. Last year there were 212 Church of England
parsons, 182 Catholic priests, and 262 ministers of various other
Christian bodies in the colony. The numbers of the different
religious denominations were: — Church of England, 342,000;
Presbyterians, 72,000 ; Wesleyans, 57,000 ; Congregationalists,
14,000 ; Baptists, 7,000 ; other Protestants, 9,000— total Protes-
tants, 516,512; total Catholics, 207,606.

To the north of St. Andrew's Cathedral, and on what was also the
old burial-ground, stands now the Town Hall, though here in older
days stood the tree that served for the public gallows. The hand-
some clock tower is 189 feet high, and overtops those of the cathedral.
The whole building is in the Italian Renaissance style, and is about
150 feet square ; the great hall inside is 132 feet long, 62 wide, and
66 high. On leaving these buildings we passed down Park Street, ^
neaily opposite, and so came out into the m iddle of Hyde Park. This
reserve, forty-nine acres in extent (as large as the Green Park), in
the midst of the city, was set apart by Governor Macquarie. At the
north end of the broad avenue of trees, that runs its entire length,

1881. CAPTAIN COOK'S MONUMENT. 657

is the statue of the Prince Consort by Theed (1866). We crossed
the centre of the park and so came to the Museum, a bold, massive,
classic building (again of brown sandstone) overlooking Hyde Park
on its eastern side and straight in front of us. Here we found up
stairs a specially fine collection of every known species of Australian
birds and another of fishes ; that of the Australian animals also is
nearly complete. The Museum is endowed with 1,000/. a year by
the colony ; when the building is completed it will extend further
back, as far as the public school that now stands in its rear.

On the southern side of the Museum and facing the park, firom
which it is separated by College Street, is the Grammar School.
The number of scholars is limited to four hundred ; it is endowed
with 1,500Z. per annum by the State : the fees for boys in the upper
school are sixteen pounds, in the lower twelve pounds, per annum.

At the south-east comer of Hyde Park, on high ground oppo-
site the Museum, towers aloft Woolner's magnificent gigantic statue
of Captain Cook, half facing the Heads at the mouth of Port Jackson,
which you clearly see away in the distance, and half turning to-
wards the northern and richest part of New South Wales, to which,
with his upraised hand, he is pointing and beckoning on as it were
those who are coming from over the sea. The figure seems to
embody in action the words of the instructions addressed' to Captain
Phillip. The foundation stone of the pedestal was laid by the Duke
of Edinburgh in 1868, but it was not completed till eleven years after-
wards, when Sir Hercules Robinson, the then Governor, unveiled the
statue in the presence of seventy thousand people. " I am," he said,
" convinced myself that within the lifetime of children now being bom
— that is within seventy-five or eighty years — the population of the
Australasian group will not be less than thirty millions. With this
increase in numbers, no doubt many political and social problems
will arise, the righteous and honest solution of which will entirely
depend upon the intelligent clearness and moral worth of the in-
dividual citizen. Chief among these problems will be the relations
which these colonies will bear to each other in the future, and the
devising some means for that more close political association with
the mother-country which will permit many millions of self-
governing Anglo-AustraHans to advance in national life, whilst at
the same time they can remain an integral portion of that Empire
of which it is now their pride as well as their privilege to form
a part."

Then to St. Mary's, the Roman Catholic Cathedral, which is

558 OX BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

unfinished, but when complete — occupying as it does one of the
highest and finest sites in Sydney, at the comer both of Hyde
Park and the Domain — will be one of the most imposing buildings
here. It is erected on the foundations of the old cathedral which
was burnt down in 1865 ; one gable only of that remains, with
figures of St. Patrick and St. Mary in niches each side of the south
window. Its entire length will be 350 feet, and there will be double
transepts. The choir is at the north end. There is to be a central
tower 120 feet high, and at the south end a couple of spires 260
feet each high. When finished it will be larger than Chester,
Bristol, or Christ Church Cathedrals. The Irish colony is a very
large one here.

Then down by Elizabeth and WoolomolooBays to Lady Macquarie's
qhair, from which, as we look down Port Jackson, it seems to us like
a combination of the English lakes and of the harbours of Dartmouth
and Plymouth. There are no end of wooded and grass-covered hills; on
the slopes of many of them rise handsome mansions in their gardens.
There are a hundred or more bays and creeks ; many of them form of
themselves capacious harbours, while numerous islands dot the main
waters. Away in the distance the cliffs of the two Heads, each over
300 feet high, stand boldly up and form as artistically as if they
were the work of man a natural gateway to the entrance, of about
one mile in breadth. The whole harbour stretches seventeen miles
inland : its whole coast line is fifty-four miles round. From the
Heads to the city is four miles ; here and there the harbour broadens
out to two miles, and at other points narrows in again. On a placid
sheet of water, surroimded by picturesque and well-wooded hills and
vaulted by a clear blue sky, you are tolerably sure to have some good
scenic effects. The extraordinary thing about the Sydney scenery
is the number and variety of these effects. The shades on the waters
and on the surrounding landscape constantly vary with the stand-
point from which you may be taking the view. The sunlight and
the atmosphere, clear, dry, crisp for nine months out of the twelve,
the constant sea air the Sydney people live in, should make this
the very paradise of homes. It is difficult to write without seeming
to exaggerate the freshness and variety of this series of inlets. We
walked back by the Exhibition Buildings, the great glass dome of
which is within four feet of the height of St. Paul's, and appears
to dominate the town from whatever point of view it be seen.

We then came home through the " Domain." This is another
reserve or open space of park of over 138 acres in extent. On its

n
»

»
GO

"•J
N

1881. . THE BOTANICAL GARDENS. 569

eastern side is Woolomoloo Bay, and on its northern side Farm Cove
and Port Jackson. Government House is in the inner Domain, that
o'pens into the Botanic Gardens that surround the shores of Farm
Cove ; over their undulating surface, covered with grass and trees,
run carriage roads and footpaths in all directions. The natural rock
protmdes here and there, and makes sheltered, shady nooks. They
occupy forty acres of the "Domain ; " this was originally "the Farm"
of the earliest settlements, where the plants and seeds brought by the
first fleet were planted. The gardens are in two divisions, the upper
and the lower. The upper is the more scientific, and contains the
best specimens ; it is thickly wooded ; some of the Norfolk Island
pines are really magnificent, the finest anywhere in cultivation.
The oldest were planted in 1818. The tallest is 112 feet high and
thirteen feet in circumference, and the other two are nearly as large.
There are many other finely-grown native trees here, and a grove
of palms on either side of the central walk. In the middle of the
garden is an aviary. The lower garden slopes away down to the
shores of Farm Cove. Here again we came upon the protruding
brown sandstone clifis, shrub-grown, and with many clumps of
plantations and single trees on the lawns, and flower-beds all about,
in some of which semi-tropical plants were growing in the open air.
The bamboo, the banyan, and the plantain thrive luxuriantly in
the open air alongside the willow, the Spanish chestnut, the English
oak, hazel-nut, elm, and lime-tree, and thus show the genial
character of the Sydney climate.

To dinner came our Admiral and the Commodore and about
twentj'-five other naval officers. Afterwards we went off to the
Mayor's ball at the old Exhibition Building ^ in Prince Alfred Park,
given by him to the Admiral, Captains, and officers of the squadron.
There were over two thousand guests ; the decorations of ferns and
fresh flowers were very pretty. The two side aisles are each thirty-
five feet wide, and strips of them (that part of them under the
galleries, fifteen feet wide), were shut off for those who were not
dancing ; at the south end there was a dais under a great arch, where
those of the party who liked could sit and look on at the dancers.

^ The building was erected in 1870 (the centenary of the landing of Captain Cook)
by the corporation for an intercolonial exhibition of Australian industry and growth.
The length is 200 feet ; it has a semicircular roof of iron, that springs forty-two feet
from the ground, and is sixty feet in diameter. Its cost was over 20,0002. The
Agricultural Society have since paid 1,000/. per annum for two months' use of the
building in each year for ten years. At these exhibitions, live stock, farm produce,
and machinery, shown each year, illustrate the progress that each colony makes in
the use of its own raw materials.

560 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

July IQth. — From our bed-room at Government House we can
hear the ships' bells striking the half hours as they lie at anchor
in Farm Cove just outside the garden. We are told that it is pro-
posed to pull down Government House, as the land on which it stands
is very valuable, and build a large central railway station here ; it
would spoil the Domain, and one of the prettiest of the many
pretty sites in Sydney. After breakfast off to be photographed at
Newman, Boyd, and Freeman's. In the streets the people, when
they recognised us, were very hearty and demonstrative, cheering
suddenly, their faces all lit up with attachment to England. We
were surprised at first at the number of Chinese in the throng.
As in other Australian towns the banks and insurance offices rear
their flourishing heads in all directions, representing money in
circulation. We counted no less than ten of them this morning.
We were told their aggregate liabilities were over eighteen millions,
and their assets nearly twenty-four millions ; the average dividends
they pay are from 8 to 25 per cent. The General Post Office at the
corner of George and Pitt Streets is a fine building in the Italian
style ; we passed it several times and admired it more each time we
did so. It will have a length of 350 feet ; there is a good deal of grey
and red polished granite in the way of pillars, or pedestals, or window
shafts introduced, which shows up well against the sandstone.
Jupiter, amid a halo of thunderbolts, presides over the telegraph
department, and I^eptune over the postal. The heads of Australia
and Britannia are carved in the keystone of the two arches, and
many other heads on others. The keystone of the central arch in
George Street weighs twenty-six tons, the largest block of free-
stone in any building ; it was set in its place by the Duke of
Edinburgh at his second visit here in 1869. Already fourteen
thousand miles of telegraph wires have been laid in New South
Wales, and for one shilling a message of ten words can be sent to
any station in the colony, and for two shillings to any part of the
Australian continent. Newspapers are carried post free, letters of
half an ounce can be sent for twopence to any part of Australasia,
and to England for sixpence. The annual number of letters posted in
the colony is twenty-six per head, in England it is forty-two. There
is a weekly mail to England — by way of Melbourne and Suez once
a fortnight, by Brisbane and Torres Straits monthly, by the Orient
line fortnightly, and by San Francisco monthly. The mail takes
thirty-seven days from Sydney to London. The Orient liners come
out by the Cape and return by the Suez Canal.

1881. NEW SOUTH WALES MILITARY FORCES. 561

At 1 P.M. we started with the Governor for the Randwick races
Driving out passed a number of strange steam tramcars which
run down all the principal streets; they pay the Government
7 per cent, on outlay, but nevertheless arc a great nuisance for
horses. The first one was laid in 1879 from the Redfem Station
to the International Exhibition, and was found to answer so well
that next year four miles were laid ; there are now as much as
twelve, next year there will probably be thirty-two, running out to
all the suburbs. We had lunch in the room behind the grand
stand, which looks out on to a very pretty race-course ; the meet-
ing was especially got up for the squadron, and there were some
very good races. We were introduced here, amongst others, to
Mr. Sahl, the vice-president of the rowing-club and cousin to
Mr. Sahl at Windsor, the Queen's private librarian and German
secretary.

To dinner in the evening came all the Ministers, Sir Henry
Parkes, Sir John Robertson, Sir Alfred Stephen' (the Lieutenant-
Governor), Sir William Manning (the Chancellor of the University),
Colonel Richardson (the Commandant of the New South Wales
miUtary force), and Colonel C. F. Roberts, in command of the
Colonial Artillery.

[In 1870 the last British soldier was withdrawn from the
colony, and in the very ne^ct year they set about providing a
military force of their own. This consists of Volunteers and of
Regulars. The infantry of the volunteers is constituted on the
militia principle under a system of partial payment, and was
established on its present footing in 1878 ; they already number
nearly 8,000 men. Recruits must drill four nights a week for three
months before they can be passed into the ranks and be enrolled
they receive neither pay nor clothing until so passed. Every
Saturday afternoon there is a " detached drill," attendance at
which is compulsory; 5s. is a private's pay for each attendance
at the same. As the English militia are called out for a month, so
this force has every Easter to go into camp ; each private then
receives 10s. a day. When he has passed a certain standard he is
enrolled as an efficient, and receives a bonus of 3/. The Volunteers
have six batteries of Artillery, one corps of Engineers, one corps
for torpedo and signalling, and three regiments, each four companies
strong, of Infantry. Attached to most of the public schools there
are also cadet corps. There is a rifle association with shooting
matches every year ; and intercolonial rifle matches are also held

VOL. I. 0 0

5G2 ON BOARD n.M.S. INCON.^TANT. 1881.

every twelve months. The challenge shield has been won three
years in succession by ten New South Welshmen.

The Act under which the Permanent force of regulars is raised
was passed in 1871 ; their cost is defrayed by an annual grant of the
colony. There are three batteries of Artillery,^ with an organisation

* The men are enlisted between the ages of eighteen and forty for five years, but
they may re-enlist for a further tci-m of either two or five years. A gunner's pay is
2«. 3(2. per diem, in addition to free rations of bread, meat, and groceries, free kit on
joining, uniform, barrack accommodation, fuel and light, and medical attendance.
There are special rates of working pay, as also increased pay on re-engaging, and
rewards are given for good conduct as in the Imperial Service, but no pensions. This
liitle "Army" of New South Wales is in all respects a regular one, and being
constantly embodied is entitled to take much higher rank than a mere militia force.
The recruits have to undergo the usual routine of squad and setting-up dhll,
manual and firing exercises, and guard-mounting ; the gunnery course follows, and
includes repository and gun-drill, with 10-inch, 9-lnch, and 80-ponnder rifle
muzzle-loadmg guns, 16-pounder rifle muzzle-loading (field) guns, and 40-pounder
breoch-loading rifle guns, llie force has mounted and shifted all the heavy 18-ton
and 12-ton harbour guns at Sydney and Newcastle (New South Wales), and was last
engaged in mounting the 25-ton guns recently purchased by the colony. They also
constructed all such portions of the fortifications as come within their province as
artillerymen. They are stationed at the harbour forts at Newcastle and at head-
quarters, according to roster ; and furnish their own regimental guard and the main-
guard at Government House. Nor is it any exaggeration to state that in respect
to physique, education, and intelligence, the non-commissioned officers and gunners
not only equal, but probably suq)ass, any three batteries in the Imperial Service.
The standard of discipline and efficiency is in all respects a very' high one ; and such
distinguished officers as Sir William Jervois, R.E., Colonel Scratchiey, R.E., Colonel
Downes, R.A., General Michell, R.A., and many othera visiting the colony, have
expressed surprise at finding in this remote corner of the globe three batteries
established upon a basis so perfectly akin to that of the Royal Artillery.

For administrative purposes there are three military districts : the Northern,
comprising the fortifications of the north side of Port Jackson, under Major Murpliy ;
the Southern, consisting of the batteries on the southern side, under Major Airey ;
and Newcastle and Botany, under Captain Murray. At each of these stations there
are handsome barracks and officers** quarters, those at Newcastle and Botany, how-
ever, are not yet completed. With harbour duties, garrison duties, battery duties,
courts of inauiry, occasional court-martials, &c., the New South Wales Artillery
officers find plenty to do, and altogether the corps is worthy a better position in
tiie Army List than that assigned to it, namely, amongst ''Colonial Militia and
Volunteers," being neither one nor the other, but really and truly a Colonial Regular
Force. Such of the officers as do not happen to be stationed at the harbour forts or
Newcastle are quartered at the Artillerv Barracks on Dawes Point (the headland
between Darling Harbour and Sydney Cove) or else at the Victorii Barracks in the
suburb of Paddington. At each of these there is a small officers' mess, llbrarj', and
reading-room. The sergeants also have a comfortable and well-furnished' mess,
presided over by Brigade Sergeant- Major Green, an old Horse Artillery veteran, who
iias seen service in India. It should be added that the corps posses-ses a small but
well-trained brass band, which plays once each week in the Botanical Gardens. This
force, like their brethren we saw at Adelaide, volunteered to leave the colony for
service in the Transvaal during the late hostilities with the Boers.

The New South Wales Government have ordered large supplies of small-arm
ammunition and some Hodgkiss and Nordenfeldt guns ; in other respects also their
defences are in a more advanced state than those of the other colonies, excepting that
they have no navy. The hFolveriru, which the British Government will present to
the colony, is to be used as a training-ship, but will not materially increase the
defensive Rtrength of Port Jackson. As the head-quarters of the British Australian
squadron are at Sydney there is less necessity here than at Victoria for a colonial navy.

1881. AUSTRALIAN MILITARY FORCES. 563

precisely similar to that of the Royal Regiment to which their colonel
lately belonged, and served in the Crimea in 1855 and in India from
1858 to 1861. Besides the Volunteers and Regulars there is also
the Naval Brigade, which comprises five companies and a torpedo
corps; the gunners receive 11. per month, and are drilled in the
heavy, gun, rifle, and boat exercises ; most of the men have been
seamen before, and the service is a most popular one. On these
forces New South Wales expends 85,000/. annually. The police
force numbers 1,280.

As for the fortifications, they were taken in hand by the Defence
Commission appointed in 1871. On the Heads 18-ton guns,
like those of the Hercules and SuUan, throwing 400 pounds shot,
are mounted en barbette; not only the two Heads are thus
fortified, but all the headlands. This was done in accordance with
Sir W. Jervois's recommendations, which are being now still fiirther
carried out. No less a sum than eight millions sterling have been
expended on the establishment and maintenance of defences.
£110,000 a year for five years, has been voted for the defence of
Port Phillip Heads alone.

All this expenditure on military and naval forces and on forti-
fications represents the price the colonies are ready and willing to
pay for connection with the mother-country ; for as long as they
are united to her they share England's perils. If they cared to be
cut adrift they need dread no attack on their own account unless
it were filibustering expeditions from the French settlements of
emancipated convicts strewn about in the Pacific.

The land forces of Victoria are also organised on the principle of
a paid militia, and consist at present of 6,000 men, 1,000 of whom
are mounted riflemen, and 500 police troopers. There is also a
regiment of dragoons, 123 sabres strong : a capitation fee of six
shillings a day is granted to each trooper for his horse ; they have a
battery of six Nordenfeldt machine guns, each drawn by two horses.
Queensland, South Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania and Western
Australia, have also done their best to organise similar forces.
Cadet corps and rifle clubs are formed throughout the colonies, and
a rifle team is about to start for the Wimbledon Meeting.
Australia can put from twenty to twenty-five thousand armed
and properly trained men in the field, officered by veterans from
the Imperial army. Twenty to forty being the soldier age, the
Australian colonies would be capable of furnishing for defence a levy
of 450,000 men, of which Victoria would contribute 114,142, and

o 0 2

664 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

New South Wales 131,805. But at present no two of the military
forces in Australia are alike, or work under the same Act. Each
colony has a system of its own. While one confines itself to a purely
volunteer force, others add to that system a militia, and others have
permanent troops. There are seven commanders-in-chief, with
seven little armies, some of which are composed of one, others of
two, and some of three branches of service, working under seven
different Acts, systems, and regulations, all quite independent
of the Home Military Department ; although arrangements have
been made for the loan for five years of several officers of various
grades from England, and for the establishment of a School of
Instruction for training the officers of the militia. (The non-
commissioned officers are paid at the rate of 180/. a year by the
colony, with free quarters and clothing.) A federation of troops
should be secured at once. The Imperial army should weld all
these local troops into one uniform machine. There are at this
moment 50,000 young fellows of army age in Australia who would
gladly join such an Imperial force. Of the large families iu
Australia there are always one or two sons who love adventure,
and to whom the British army would be very attractive. Though
warmly attached to the land of their birth, they at any rate regard
one part of the Empire as important as another, and would be as
willing to serve in India and the Crown colonies as in Australia.]

While we were dining with the Governor and Ministers of New
South Wales the Prince of Wales was being entertained by the Lord
Mayor at a colonial banquet at the Mansion House in London ;
Lord Kimberley, the Minister for the Colonies, the Agents-General
and representatives of each of the English colonies were present.
In returning thanks for liis health the Prince said : —

" This is, indeed, a very special dinner, one of a kind that I do
not suppose has ever been given before ; for we have here this
evening representatives of probably every colony in the Empire,
We have not only the Secretary of the Colonies, but Governors,
past and present. Ministers, Administrators, and Agents, are all,
I think, to be found here this evening. I regret that it has
not been possible for me to see half or one-third of the colonies
whicli it has been the good fortune of my brother the Duke of
Edinburgh to visit. In his voyages round the world he has had
opportunities more than once of seeing all our great colonies.
Though I have not been able personally to see them, or only a
small portion of them, you may rest assured it does not diminish

1881. PRINCE OF WALES'S SPEECH. 665

in any way the interest I take in them. It is, I am sorry to
say, now going on for twenty-one years since I visited our large
North American colonies. Still, though I was very young at
the time, the remembrance of that visit is as deeply imprinted on
my memory now as it was at that time. I shall never forget the
public receptions which were accorded to me in Canada, New
Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, and if it were
possible for me at anytime to repeat that visit, I need not tell you
gentlemen who now represent here those great North American
colonies, of the great pleasure it would give me to do so. It aflfords
me great gratification to see an old friend. Sir John Macdonald,
the Premier of Canada, here this evening. It was a most pressing
invitation, certainly, that I received two years ago to visit the
great Australasian colonies, and though at the time I was unable
to give an answer, in the affirmative or in the negative, still it
soon became apparent that my many duties here in England would
prevent my accomplishing what would have been a long, though
a most interesting voyage. I regret that such has been the case,
and that I was not able to accept the kind invitation I received
to visit the Exhibitions at Sydney and at Melbourne. I am glad,
however, to know that they have proved a great success. Though
I have not had the opportunity of seeing these great Australasian
colonies, which every day and every year are making such
immense development, still, at the International Exhibitions of
London, Paris, and Vienna, I had not only an opportunity of seeing
their various products there exhibited, but I had the pleasure of
making the personal acquaintance of many colonists — a fact which
has been a matter of great importance and great benefit to myself.
It is now thirty years since the first International Exhibition took
place in London, and then for the first time colonial exhibits were
shown to the world. Since that time, from the Exhibitions which
have followed our first great gathering in 1851, the improvements
that have been made are manifest. That in itself is a clear proof
of the way in which the colonies have been exerting them-
selves to make their vast territories of the great importance that
they are at the present moment. But though, my Lord Mayor,
I have not been to Australasia, as you have mentioned, I have
sent my two sons on a visit there; and it has been a matter
of great gratification, not only to myself and to the Princess,
but to the Queen, to hear of the kindly reception they have
met with everywhere. They are but young, but I feel confident

566 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

that their visit to the Antipodes will do them an incalculable
amount of good."

July 17th. — ^At 7.30 a.m. went on board the TnconstarU ; at
church on the main deck, Dr. Mesac Thomas, Bishop of Goulbura,
preached. In the afternoon we went for a drive with Lady Augustus
Loftus right through Sydney, and up out by the station to Dar-
lington and to the University, where Sir William Manning (the
Chancellor), Dr. Badham (Professor of Classics), and Dr. Smith
(Professor of Chemistry), showed us round. The University,
the first founded in Australasia, was incorporated in 1851. A
large space of ground outside the city on the south-west side has
been set apart as the University reserve, and in the midst of this,
upon the crown of a broad eminence that slopes away on all sides
from it, stands the University itself with its three colleges ; it is
endowed with 5,000f. per annum by the State. Besides founda-
tions and benefactions by private gifts amounting to over 50,000^.,
180,000/. was recently bequeathed to it by the late Mr. J. H.
Challis ; another benefactor, the Hon. W. Macleay, has just esta-
blished four science fellowships of 400Z. per annum each; their
occupants must be " actively engaged in original study and re-
search ; " tenure is renewed every year. Mr. Fisher has left 30,000/.
for a Library, which it is proposed to spend on building, leaving it
to other benefactors to supply books ; and if the wise liberality of
the colonists continues at this rate, the University of Sydney will
soon be worthy of Australia. Up to the present time it has cost
in buildings and endowments over 200,000/. The principal front,
in the Elizabethan style, is 410 feet in length; in the centre
of this rises the square tower. It has at the present moment not
more than 100 graduates, who send a member to the Assembly.

We went first to the beautiful University Hall, which, like all
other public buildings in Sydney, is built of the brown freestone,
the colour of which, inside, harmonises well with the stained glass
windows, on which are represented various literary celebrities. To see
these better, we went up into the balcony, which as an oriel window
projects from the Library into one side of the halL They pointed
out to us the three royal windows, on which are shown the sovereigns
and their consorts from the Conqueror to the Queen ; another is
the Oxford window at the west end of the hall, with fourteen
founders of Oxford Colleges; the Cambridge window, with its
similar fourteen figures, is at the east end. The side windows,
each with their three lights, «.re also filled with an historical series

1881. SYDNEY UNIVERSITY. 507

of pictures from Saxon times to the middle of last century ; all
these figures are the full life size. The open timbered roof of
Australian cedar, elaborately finished, is supported on arches which
spring from stone corbels, six on either side ; these are of Caen stone
from Normandy, and each is sculptured with the arms of some
sister university; those of Melbourne consist of the angel of
Knowledge standing between the four stars of the Southern Cross.
The hammer beams that project above the corbels are carved as
large angels, twelve in number, all crowned with gold. Ten
represent the sciences — Grammar (with papyrus roll), Dialectics,
Poetry (with ancient harp), Ethics (with Uly), Metaphysics, Physics,
Music, Astronomy, Geometry, and Arithmetic. The two others
bear scrolls — " Timor Domini principium sapientiae," and *' Scientia
inflat, Caritas aedificat." On the walls are portraits of founders
and benefactors of all denominations. We were told that this Hall
was 135 feet long, forty-five feet wide, and seventy-three feet
high, not quite the size of the Hall of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, but larger than that at Christ Church, Oxford. It is used
for the University examinations, and is somewhat larger than the
Senate House at Cambridge, being about half the length of King s
College chapel. In the Hall is a marble statue, by Tenerani, of
William Wentworth, who introduced the Bill under which the
University was incorporated, and who is deemed its founder.

We went into the Library and into the Museum of Classical Anti-
quities that have travelled all round the globe to come out here, and
then Dr. Badham took us up the large square tower (in the lower
part of which he has rooms), and from the top of which you get the
best view of Sydney and the suburbs away westward to Para-
matta and the Blue Mountains ; to the eastward gleam the waters
of the Pacific, and away to the south is Botany Bay with terouse's
obelisk and monument and the white sand spit. There are
seven professors (the salary of each is over 1,000/. a year), and as
many lecturers. There are three terms in the year, and the
matriculation and degree examinations seem much the same as
at Cambridge ; the degrees are in arts, law, medicine, and " such
branches of knowledge as the University may think fit," except
divinity. Women are admitted equally with men to all the
privileges of the University. The annual public examinations
held at the Sydney University are similar to the middle-class
examinations of Oxford and Cambridge, being intended to test the
youths from the various schools of this and the neighbouring

568 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

colonies. Last year there were 447 examined, and those from the
Brisbane Grammar School carried oflf the palm. A Civil Service
examination is held three times a year. All persons seeking
appointment in the State service are required to pass this ex-
amination satisfactorily.

Then to the three "affiliated colleges" all within the University
reserve of 130 acres. These are intended for the systematic re-
ligious instruction and domestic supervision of such students as
like to avail themselves of their assistance in preparing for the
University examinations and lectures. No student can be admitted
at either of the three colleges unless he at once matriculates
at the University, submits to its discipline, and attends the
lectures.

First to St, Paul's College, which belongs to the Church of
England, where the warden, the Rev, W. Hey Sharp, took us
round. It was founded in 1852. The subscriptions that were
raised were doubled by an equal grant from the public funds of the
colony, and by 500/. per annum for the principal. The foundation
stone was laid on St. Paul's Day, 1856. The present buildings
consist of one side of a quadrangle containing suites of rooms,
a wing intended for the same purpose, but at present occupied by
the warden, a library, and a handsome little hall of good height
and proportions, capable of dining eighty or 100 students. We
went over the chemical laboratory, and saw the beginnings of the
museum of minerals and geology. There are four scholarships
and sixteen undergraduates. The expenses for board and lodging
and tuition here are 70/. per annum, everything included. They
have no chapel or warden's house yet, and seem to want funds.
The Act of 1854 provided that as soon as 10,000/. was sub-
scribed for a college of any denomination, and not less than 4,000/,
actually paid, with security that the remainder be paid within tliree
years, the whole to be exclusively devoted to college buildings, the
State would meet it with a further sum, not exceeding in the whole
20,000/. But the grant would never be for more than what had
actually been already spent on the building out of the funds sub-
scribed. The State also guaranteed besides in perpetuity 500/.
per annum for salary of each principal of such college.

Then to St. Andrew's, which is Presbyterian, where the Rev. J.
Kinross, with the Scotch students, kindly received us, and showed
us their chambers, hall, &c. And lastly to St. John's, which
is Roman Catholic. This seemed the most complete of the three;

1881, EDUCATION IN NEW SOUTH WALES. 669

the rector, the Very Rev. H. Gillett, took us over the chapel and into
the museum, and before we left Archbishop Vaughan, who lives in
the college, came in. He is the brother of the Father Vaughan
we saw in Buenos Aires, and some years ago he took the Prince of
Wales over St. Paul's Church in Rome. Another brother is the
Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford in England, and a third is
Prior of the Benedictine monastery at Fort Augustus in Scotland.
There is plenty of space for further colleges in the University
reserve, and also for cricket, football, and other games. In these three
colleges a fair proportion of the undergraduates are boarded and
lodged, but a great many besides live out in lodgings in the town,
and thus lose the discipline and the community of life which they
would get if they were together in one building, as at Oxford or
Cambridge.

[A new Public Instruction Act, an amendment to the existing
Act, 186C (both by Sir H. Parkes), came into operation last year
(1880), By this, school-attendance is rendered compulsory for all
children. Grammar, geography, arithmetic, algebra, geometry,
history, French, Latin, music, drawing, singing, with needlework
for girls, and drill and gymnastics for boys, are the subjects taught.
The schools are of four classes, and are for boys, girls, and infants.
No. 1 is the primary school proper ; No. 2 is the superior public
school, where, in addition to the subjects of elementary education,
additional classes for higher instruction are held ; No. 3, evening
public schools for adults ; No. 4, high schools, in which ancient and
modem languages, literature, physical science, &c., are taught.
There are scholarships to enable boys or girls to pass on fiom
the public school to the University. The school fee is 3rf., Qd. or
Is. per week, but if parents are unable to pay, the children are
admitted without any charge whatever ; each district has a School
Board. There are at the present moment under the Minister of
Public Instruction thirteen hundred and fifty-seven schools, with
three thousand teachers, receiving from 400/. to 20/. apiece. The
school fees are the property of the State, which is responsible for
the payment of all the teachers. Last year there was paid thus in
fees 69,000/. odd, and besides this 525,000/, was spent by the State
on primary education ; as many as 128,125 pupils were attending.
In out-of-the-way districts, where the population is very scattered,
provision is made for provisional or half-time schools ; at these the
teacher attends a group of six or eight children three days in the
week, and on the. other three days passes on to another group;

570 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

these schools are better than none for the time being, and will
gradually grow, as population increases, into regular public schools.
When it is necessary, children may travel to school by railway free.
There are very stringent regulations as to the inspection, both of
the teachers, children, and buildings. The Act was passed almost
unanimously both by the upper and lower Houses, and the feeling
in the colony is intensely strong in favour of a religious instruction.
It is provided that the minimum four hours a day of secular
instruction to be given by the schoolmaster shall include general
religious instruction free from special dogma. But to meet the
views of denominationalists for whom this general religious in-
struction is not enough, it is further provided that certified religious
teachers shall have access to the public schools, and that one hour
in five shall be available for the special religious instruction of the
children belonging to the church of the visiting religious teacher.
Common Christianity is thus taught by the schoolmaster ; special
dogmatic teaching is given by the clergyman. The Roman
Catholics, however, object strongly to any secular instruction, even
of the simplest kind, being given to their children except by
Roman Catholic teachers. In nearly every township there is a
school of arts or mechanics' institute. One pound for every two
pounds raised for the building funds and endowment, and a sum
equal to half the annual subscriptions, is granted by the State in
aid of these. It really does come upon one with a shock of surprise
to find how very small in England the total expenditure on education
is after all. For England and Wales the whole cost of elementary
education is only six and a half millions, and whereas in the
United Kingdom the cost of education (science and art and all
included) is 6s. a head, in many of our own colonies it is 145., and
in some of the United States it is 19s.; in New South Wales
it is 153. per head of the population.]

We then went to the Prince Alfred Hospital, a huge, well-
built pile constructed in blocks, like St. Thomas's Hospital on the
Thames Embankment. Sir Alfred Stephen showed us over this.
" The hospital for the relief of the sick and maimed, possessing all
modern appliances necessary for the effective treatment of disease
and convalescents," was determined upon as a most suitable me-
morial of the joy of the people of New South Wales at the Duke's
recovery, and a proof of the strength and tenacity of their affection
for the Queen and their mother-country. The inscription on the
foundation stone is: "Deo Opt. Max. qui Alfredum ducem Edinensem

1881. BOOMERANGS AND FROZEN MEAT. 671

in ipsis feriis et gratulationibus quibus eumcivitas Sydn. excipiebat
ab homine fanatico graviter volneratum reginae matri Britannisque
omnibus servavit Colonia Nov. Camb. Aust. tanti facinoris dolore et
opprobrio liberata hoc aegrotorum perfugium medicinaeque domi-
cilium posnit A.S.H. MDCCCLXXVI. V. 111. Here. Q. R. Robinson,
Col. praefecto." It was originally to have been erected adjoining the
Sydney Infirmary in Macquarie Street, as determined at the public
meeting held March, 1868 ; but the scheme grew till the present
much larger site was given by the Senate of the University close
by. It is connected with that as a medical school, and its examina-
tions are recognised by the Royal College of Surgeons of England,
as well as by the Universities of London and Edinburgh.

July \Sth, — At 7 AM., went on board the Inconstant, and after
breakfast had the usual school till dinner time. In the afternoon
Commodore Wilson brought up Mr. Moseley to Government House,
who threw the boomerang in the grounds. There are two sorts
of throwing, the one, when it is made to fly in the air to hit a
bird and then return to the feet. This is said to have been
suggested to the natives by the whirl of the leaves of the eucalyptus
tree. The other way is that in which it is thrown in war time, when
it is made to go straight forward, hopping along the ground, plung-
ing and circUng. In the collection of arms and weapons lately
presented to the University of Oxford by Colonel Pitt Rivers, the
development of the boomerang is exhibited in all its stages ; and
the arrangement of the specimens of this weapon brings out dis-
tinctly that it was not invented, but was " accidentally produced, and
retained by the selection of the natural forms of the stems of trees
and branches suitable for the purpose." The use of the boomerang
is distinctive of the Australioid race ; though, curiously enough, it is
found in its earliest form, like the parrying shield, among the black
and dark-coloured races of southern Europe — races which Professor
Huxley, judging by physiological evidence alone, has traced to the
Australioid stock.

Afterwards we went to Mort's Refrigerating Chambers, and
saw the whole process of preparing the frozen meat, and the
assortment of Australian birds and animals which have been thus
prepared, and are going to England by the Cuzco for a Lord Mayor's
dinner. Mr. Buchanan showed us round the chambers and explained
everything ; it was a curious sight when the double doors were
closed behind us, and we found ourselves amongst the icebergs
and frost in the dark. We brought down clouds of snow on our

578 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT, 1881.

shoulders, for the roof of all the passages was covered with it. We
heard that milk frozen by this process is taken on board ship for
daily use, and thus keeps fresh all the way home to England.

Each of the ships of the Orient line are furnished with an ice-
room or compartment, the temperature of which is kept 22"* below
freezing point by chemical preparations during the whole voyage ; and
while Australia sends home meat, England sends out salmon in the
same way; we had fresh Scotch salmon for dinner several evenings
at Sydney. All that is required is that it should be thawed slowly
before use. The glut of meat in the colony is so great that for
many years past after their fleeces were taken, the carcases of the
sheep have been left either to rot on the ground or have been
boiled to produce tallow. There are over 35,000,000 of sheep at
the present moment in this one colony i^ We next went to the

^ The late Mr. T. S. Mort spent a largo fortune in pursuing this idea of meat-pre-
serving, which he regarded as one of the most important scientific and national
problems of the age. He was never daunted by failure, and over a dozen of the first
inventions proved such, more ot less, until the Bell-Coleman process we have seen
to-day completely set the question at rest, that it is possible to convey meat in prime
condition from Australia to London at a paying price ; all that is now required
is the erection of the necessary machinery in the colony for preparing the meat for
shipment, and a regular supply of vessels properly fitted up to convey it to London.
As most of the com for the bread eaten in the British Isles comes across the Atlantic
from America or from India, so in a few years' time most of the fresh meat eaten
will come cither through the Suez Canal from Australia, or (through the Panama
Canal) from New Zealand, or from Buenos Aires and the South American pro-
vinces on the river Plate. The flocks and herds of Australasia could even now yield
a yearly supply of a million tons of meat, a quantity sufficient for twenty millions
of people (tne population of England and Wales is twenty-five millions), without
reducing the capital number of their stock.

The business of preparing frozen meat for shipment to England is making steady
progress. At the town of Orange, 200 miles from Sydney, and 3,000 feet above the
level of the sea and in the heart of a rich pastoral country, an energetic company
has established a slaughter-house and freezing- chambers. The experiments hitherto
conducted having turned out satisfactorily, the company is enlarging its premises and
ordering fresh machinery, so as to be in a position to freeze annually half a million
sheep or 50,000 bullocks. The frozen-meat trade seems to be gathering strength
with each successive shipment In 1881 England received 13,771 frozen carcases from
Australia ; in 1882, 65,087, and 8,840 from New Zealand ; in 1883, 98,754 frozen
sheep from New Zealand, and 60,717 from Australia ; in 1884, from Australia 107,437,
from New Zealand 398,859, and from the Plate 64,869. Special ships have been
constructed for this meat traffic ; they each carry 25,000 frozen carcases of New
Zealand sheep. In England a large quantity of the meat sold as Southdown or
Welsh is in reality imported. The meat is, on arrival, as perfectly fresh as it was
a few hours after it ceased to be sheep and became mutton. The present price
of New Zealand mutton at Smithfield is from 5d. to 5id. per lb. ; of Australian,
4id, to 4id. ; and of river Plate, 4:^^. to i^d. Prime mutton in New Zealand is
worth 2id, to Zd. per lb. The Argentine Government are about to grant a bounty
on the export of frozen meat. In that country there are 80,000,000 sheep, which
can be sold profitably in London at ^id, per lb. In the London Docks are huge
refrigerating warehouses, where the meat is kept frozen till such time as the market
is ready to absorb it after unshipping, often for several weeks. The total annual
consumption of mutton in the United Kingdom is said to be 400,000 tons, and of

1381. AUSTRALIAN LEGISLATURES. 573

Art Gallery in the rear of the Botanical Gardens. There are two
temporary galleries each of 150 feet, the roof is of iron, and it is
through this that all the light is admitted, so that the whole wall
space is available for the pictures, on which 60,000^. have been
spent. There are several good pictures here of the English and
Belgian schools, lately purchased by the Colonial Government^
many water-colour drawings, and several pieces . of Marshall
Wood's sculpture. Sir Patrick Jennings met us here, and we
went on with him then into the great Exhibition building. The
Sydney people call it the Garden Palace ; the foundation stone
was laid February 13th, 1879 ; the whole was completed at a cost
of over 200,000^., and opened September 17th. In outline it is
cruciform, the height of the nave is sixty feet ; the width fifty ; and
where the two broad aisles intersect there rises a dome over 200
feet high (the same height as that of St. Paul's, although the drum
which supports it is not so high). It is constructed of wood
bound with iron straps and bolts, the rest of the palace is con-
structed chiefly of wood and glass, and coveru an area of seven and
a half acres. There are four brick towers, each 118 feet high,
that stand at the end of the nave and transepts. The whole is
now empty ; we walked through it and then went up the south-
eastern tower; from the top we had a fine view over Sydney,
Port Jackson, and surrounding country. [It was totally destroyed
by fire on the morning of September 22nd, 1882.]

This evening we dined with Sir G. Wigram Allen, the Speaker
of the Legislative Assembly ; he gave the dinner to the Governor
and the Admiral, and had also invited the Commodore and the
Captains of the ships of the squadron. Sir Henry Parkes, Sir John
Robertson, Mr. Kirkpatrick (leader of the Opposition), and two
members from either side of the House.

[Since the introduction of a responsible local self-government
into New South Wales in 1856, there have been eleven ParKa-
ments which have existed on an average about two and a half
years. The present Ministry is the twentieth that has held office.
The Upper House or " Legislative Council" consists of fifty-three

beef 840,000 tons. In 1884 there were 10,500,000 cattle in the United Kingdom.
Two millions a year of these go to the butcher, and produce 666,000 tons of dressed
meat. The total number of sheep in the United Kingdom in 1884 was 29,376,000 ;
but the number seems to be decreasing, although the population of these islands is
increasing. Fifteen years ago we were practically self-supporting as regards beef,
and very nearly so in respect of mutton. Now American and Canadian cattle rule
Glasgow as the frozen mutton of New Zealand is beginning to rule Smithfield.

574 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT, 1881.

members : they are summoned by the Crown, and hold their seats
for life. Four -fifths at least must hold no office of profit under
the Crown. They are never to fall below twenty-one in number,
and must be all over twenty-one years of age, natural-bom subjects
of Her Majesty, or naturalised in New South Wales. The Lower
House or " Legislative Assembly " consists of 113 members, elected
by seventy-two constituencies. Every male adult who has resided
for six months in the colony has a vote. There were 196,261 on
the electoral roll last year. The duration of parliament is limited
to three years.

In Queensland responsible local self-government was introduced
in 1860. There have been nine Parliaments and twelve Ministries.
The Upper House or " Legislative Council " are nominated for life
by the Crown, but a seat can be resigned, and is vacated by absence
for two sessions, or by bankruptcy. At present there are thirty-
six members. Four-fifths must consist of those who do not hold
any office of emolument under the Crown. The Lower House or
** Legislative Assembly " consists of fifty-five members, elected by
ballot in forty-two constituencies by every male adult who has
resided for six months in the electoral district, or possesses freehold
worth lOOZ. a year. There are 60,147 electors on the roll. The
duration of parliament is limited to five years.

In South Australia responsible local self-government was intro-
duced in 1856. There have been eleven Parliaments and thirty-
four Ministries. The Upper House or "Legislative Council"
consists of twenty-four members, elected by four electoral districts,
for twelve years. Residents of three years in the district and over
thirty years of age are eligible. Eight members retire every three
years, two from each district. All freeholders of value over 50Z. or
leaseholders of more than 20Z. per annum, or householders of over
25/. a year, if resident for six months in the district, have votes.
The Lower House, or " House of Assembly," consists of fifty-
two members elected by twenty-six constituencies. The electors
are all male adults of six months* residence, and there are on
the roll 59,176. The duration of parliament is limited to three
years.

In Tasmania responsible local self-government was introduced
in 1856. There have been eight Parliaments and sixteen Ministries.
The Upper House or " Legislative Council " consists of sixteen
members elected by thirteen constituencies for six years. Candi-
dates must be thirty years of age, and the electors must have a

1881. AUSTRALIAN LEGISLATURES. 675

freehold estate of 20/. per annum clear, or a leasehold of SOL per
annum, or a degree at some British University ; lawyers, doctors,
officers in the army or navy, and ministers of religion also have
votes. The Lower House, or " House of Assembly," consists of
thirty-two members elected by all male adults of twelve months'
residence. The duration of parliament is limited to five years.

In Victoria responsible local self-government was introduced in
1855. There have been twelve Parliaments and twenty-two
Ministries. The Upper House, or " Legislative Council " consists
of forty-two members elected by fourteen constituencies. A
member must be thirty years old, and have resided ten years in
Victoria, and possessed of freehold of the annual value of 100/.
The seats are held for six years, but one member retires by
rotation in each district every second year. There are about
107,914 electors. They must be freeholders of not less than 10/.
a year, or leaseholders of 25/. a year, graduates, lawyers, doctors,
ministers, schoolmasters, military or naval officers. The Lower
House or ''Legislative Assembly" consists of eighty-six members
from fifty-five constituencies ; male adults resident for two years
in Victoria are eligible. At present members are paid 300/. a
year, but this only holds good for the present parliament. Its
duration is limited to three years. The electors number 198,076
(of whom 31,393 are non-ratepayers) and consist of all adult
males resident for twelve months in Victoria.

Land laws, education, mines, militia, public works, railways,
tariff, are the chief subjects that employ these local legisla-
tures. Though enjoying the largest liberty of self-government
and home rule, these colonies have no voice whatever in Imperial
matters, such as peace or war, foreign affairs, or India.]

The garden outside Sir Wigram Allen's and the grounds were
illuminated with Chinese lanterns, and the inside of the house
is very pretty. On returning to Government House there were
some private amateur theatricals in the drawing-room. The
piece given was A Wonderful Woman. After this there was a
little dance, which was very jolly as there were not too many in
the room.

July 19th, — Off to the Inconstant at 7.30 A.M., at school all the
morning. To lunch at Government House came Archbishop
Vaughanand his chaplain, Dr. Canoletti. We had intended to have
gone to St. Vincent's Hospital afterwards with them, but had to
put it off, as it was arrange:! that we should go over the Govern-

576 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

ment Printing Office with Sir Henry Parkes, which we did. We
went first to the principal Government Offices (the Treasury,
Colonial Secretary's office, and Works and Lands Department), all
just outside the Domain, and all in Bridge Street ; fine buildings,
externally in classic style, and of brown sandstone — very like the
Treasury Buildings at Whitehall. The original stream that flowed
into Sydney Gove in the time of the old settlement was at the
bottom of the hill down which Bridge Street runs. The rivulet
is now completely arched over ; Pitt Street is where it used to flow :
an old wooden bridge is described by the Frenchmen as having
stood here in 1804. Turning into the Treasury we went up stairs to
the Gouncil-room, which is full of all sorts of beautiful things —
statues, pictures, porcelain, and Japanese curios. Leaving these
buildings, we went round to the Government Printing Office at the
back in Bent Street. All the machinery is English-made. We saw
the printing presses at work, for a great deal of the work which is done
for Government by contract in England under private firms is here
done by the Colonial Government for themselves, as there would be
a difficulty in finding firms out here who could do it at a reasonable
cost. We saw the postage and receipt stamps being printed, and
the railway tickets for the Government lines, guide-books, circulars,
lists of electors, and a number of photographs and lithographs being
struck ofl*; and also went into that part of the building where all
sorts of bookbinding are carried out. Some of the specimens of
fancy printing were very finely done j the whole thing reminded us
of Messrs. Waterlow's establishment at Finabury.

Close by, and at the comer where Bent Street comes into
Macquarie Street, is the Free Library. It was conapleted in 1869,
and, like the one we saw at Melbourne, is open every day from
10 A.M. to 10 P.M. Besides the privilege of study in the library,
which is free to all, there is also, in another part of the building, a
separate lending library, opened in 1877, and from which books
can be borrowed and taken home for reading, or lent out to
country districts. So much are the privileges of both these libraries
(which contain 60,000 volumes) appreciated, that it has become
necessary to erect far larger buildings than the present, which the
Government are on the point of carrying out on ground adjoining
the Museum, at a cost of 95,000/.

To dinner came several midshipmen from the Inconstant, and with
them we went afterwards to the Commodore and Mrs. Wilson a
reception.

1881. VISIT TO THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 577

July 20^A. — Left Sydney by special train at 7 A.M. for the Blue
Mountains. Sir Henry Parkes had invited as many officers of the
squadron as could come : about thirty -six went. The morning was
misty, and there was a white frost on the ground at starting, but
we saw the dark foliage and golden fruit of the orange groves at
Paramatta through tlie mist, succeeded by many cleared patches of
ground for small farms, and neat cottages surrounded with vine-
yards and orchards, until eight miles from Paramatta we came to
Blacktown, where the branch line to Windsor and the valley of the
Hawkesbury runs off to the north. Twelve miles further is Penrith
(thirty-four miles from Sydney), to which in 1862 the line wasopened,
and here we crossed the Nepean River at some height by an iron
tubular bridge on four pieces of solid masonry, each 186 feet apart.
After this we found ourselves on rich alluvial plains and what looks
like a fine grazing country. The mist had now lifted, and we could
see the Blue Mountains rising like a vast wall covered with dark
green, stretching away in the distance, north and south, as far as
the eye could reach. The white line of the zigzag and the viaducts
winding up their sides were also pointed out to us.

[This railway, the oldest in New South Wales, was begun as
long ago as 1850. The Government bought it in 1855, and ever
since then all the railways in the colony have been made and worked
by the State. There is only one gauge in New South Wales, the
English one (4 feet 8J inches). The southern line runs direct to
the Victorian border, nearly 400 miles distant, and there conaects
with the line to Melbourne. The direct communication between
the two capitals, a journey of 576 miles, was first opened on
February 2nd, 1881, and is covered now in nineteen and a-half
hours. The western line, along which we are travelling to-day,
crosses the Blue Mountains to Bathurst, 120 miles in the interior,
where it branches out into three forks, each over 300 miles long ;
the two first run to the Darling River and after intersecting the
Riverina terminate at Fort Bourke and Mount Murchison: the
third connects with Deniliquin in the south. In the north of New
South Wales there are other railways from Newcastle on the coast
for 200 miles inland towards the Queensland border, which will
probably be reached in 1887, across the Liverpool Plains. The
two gaps between the Queensland border and Tamworth, and be*
tween Newcastle and Sydney, are now in process of being filled up.
In New South Wales there are already 1,643 miles of railway open
for traffic, and authority has been obtained for the construction of

VOL. I. p p

578 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

2,085 miles additional, which are to be opened in the next five
years. Railways are a supreme necessity for the development of
Australia. Without them vast resources would remain beyond
reach, whilst each new line proves an ever-widening channel of
benefit to all classes of the community, the squatter, the farmer,
the miner, and the handicraftsman. The whole of the lines now
open cost 21,526,900/.; the earnings in 1884 were 2,086,237/., and
the expenses 1,301,259/. All the materials (except the sleepers)
have been imported from England. By far the larger portion of
the 31,000,000/. of the public debt of the colony is represented by
these State railways, which are reproductive works. Taking all the
lines together — good, bad, and indifferent — the general result is a
net earning of over 5 J per cent, on the capital invested. As the
average interest on the public debt is only 4 J per cent., this leaves
a surplus profit to the colony of over | per cent. The investment
cannot be injured by competition, as the Government has the
monopoly of the whole system and can, if necessary, at any time
slightly raise the fares and freights so as to increase the revenue.
They are now as low as in any part of the world. When the whole
of the colony is connected together with this well-designed iron
network, and it is in through communication with Queensland in
the north and Victoria in the south, a great step in firmly welding
the Australian colonies together into a united whole will have been
accomplished. We have already seen similar results in South
America, p. 273.]

. We arrived at the foot of the first zigzag at 8.30 A.M.; the line
gradually ascends the mountain side by a series of zigzags. At the
end of each of these the train is reversed on a level, and is thus
alternately drawn and pushed up by the same engine, and at
each stage thus mounts higher and higher. Commencing at
Emu Plains station, about thirty-six miles from Sydney, the line
curves boldly away on its first ascent up the Blue Mountains, the
ruling gradient for a distance of two miles and up to the first
reveraing station being 1 in 30, On this steep incline there is
an immense earthwork embankment three-quarters of a mile in
length and forty feet deep. Half a mile fiirther on we crossed the
. Knapsack Gully viaduct. It consists of seven spans, five of fifty feet,
i,wo of twenty; the loftiest piers are 120 feet high, and its total
length is 388 feet. This viaduct is 245 feet above Emu Plains,
which we have just left. As the mist has now completely cleared
away, and the sun is shining brightly, we see the Nepean

1881. UP THE FIRST ZIGZAG. 579

winding like a silver thread across the plains towards the coast.
From the first reversing station, which is 413 feet above the sea.
there is an ascent of 1 in 33 for half a mile to the second reversing
station, which is 474 feet above the sea. From this point the
line continues its direct journey on a gradient of 1 in 33 for
the next thirty-eight miles, along the summit of the watershed
which divides the waters of the Nepean and Grose ; the drainage
for the latter runs ofiF to the east and that for the former to
the west, though both ultimately unite further away to the south.
For nearly sixty miles the line thus pursues its way along the
top of the ridges, where the curves are often very sharp. There is
scarcely a single eighth of a mile of straight or level line in the
whole course, nothing but deep cuttings, embankments, and steep
gradients. Each turn of the road opens up fresh scenes. We look
down on either side into valleys hundreds of feet deep, hedged in
with mountains and clothed with verdure of every shade. There
are a few cleared spaces of cultivated ground, but for the most
part the mountains remain in their primseval ruggedness. After
reaching the "weather board,'* as the summit is now called—
though it was named the King's Tableland by the first explorers
on account of the majestic grandeur of the situation — nearly
3,000 feet above the sea, and sixty miles from Sydney, (the
electric light at the Heads can be seen from here on a clear
night,) we ran on a little further, and stopped at Faulconbridge,
Sir Henry Parkes's home in the hills, where, in the verandah over-
looking a long stretch of forest-clad valley and lofty upland. Lady
Parkes had had breakfast prepared for us. The crisp, bracing aif
of the mountains had given us all a good appetite.

After this we walked with Sir Henry all down what he called
his garden glen— a series of steep terraces, which, when the trees
and shrubs grow up, will be very pretty. AJl sorts of ferns and
orchids, wild flowers and lichens, have been planted about upon the
rocks and tree-stumps. After planting a couple of peach-trees, we
left at ten, and went on in the train.

The hills and valleys are all covered with that delicate purple
hue which gives the name to the whole range. Away to the south-
east are the highlands in Camden County, sixty miles south of
Sydney. To the north are the ranges in the direction of Newcastle,
and nearer at hand, ten miles distant, is Mount. George, 3,620 feet
high (higher than Snowdon), and with a sheer straight cliflF on its
southern side of 2,500 feet; Mount Hay, 2,400 feet; and to the

p p 2

580 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT, 1881.

eastward of these Mount Tomah, 3,240 feet. On these three hills,
sometimes spoken of collectively as the Dromedary, the soil is of
the richest kind, composed principally of disintegrated trap, now
clothed with noble timber trees, the undergrowth being chiefly
tree and other ferns. This is the more extraordinary, as they are
surrounded in all directions by other hills of a sandstone formation,
covered by scrub and a few eucalyptus — the fact being that a mass
of volcanic rock has burst up through the surrounding sandstone,
and decaying, left there a soil deep and fertile. Looking down
on the intricate character of the different mountain ravines, which
intersect with their endless labyrinth of gullies all this dividing
range, we seem to understand more of the formation of Port
Jackson and the other harbours with their countless bays on the
coast — ^the only difference is that here there are trees instead of sea
at the foot of the cliffs.

At Blackheath (about eighty miles from Sydney) we once more
left the train, and some of us walking and others driving through the
bush for a couple of miles, visited " Govett's Leap," so called from
the surveyor who first discovered it, but he neither leapt nor
threw himself over. It is said to be one of the deepest chasms
with perpendicular cliffs in the world (beating even the Grand
Canon in the Yellowstone Park). We work our way down on to
the ledge on the left-hand side, 200 feet lower than the top. After
scrambling down some of us recline on the out-jutting rock and
watch the strange effect produced by the waterfall some way
to the right, and in quiet look forth over this wonderful place.
We are perched on the edge of a vast rampart of perpendicular
and flat-topped cliff of red sandstone, which stretches round on
either side and hems in the head of a magnificent valley — here one
mile at least wide — into which we gaze down from a height of over
2,000 feet. The various huge curves of its hill-sides, thickly covered
with forest, run on till they are lost in the blue distance. Over
the edge of one of the cliffs tumbles a cataract into the wooded
gorge below : the strong body of water is unbroken at first as it falls
over the Leap ; but it is dissipated into spray and mist long before
its waters can reach the bottom ; for the face of the cliff in the
horseshoe over which it falls goes down 800 feet sheer perpendicular,
and the bottom of the valley is 1,200 feet further below that.
The depth at which the water first strikes the rock from the
edge is 620 feet, and to the basin at the foot of the rock it is about
600 feet, a height equal to that of St. Paul's Cathedral with the

1881. OOVETT'S LEAP. DOWN THE SECOND ZIGZAG. 581

Monument on top of it. In some places the cliffs go sheer down
in precipices over 1,000 feet deep — there is one of 1,400 feet : the
summit of the highest part of the rock of Gibraltar is only 1,396
feet above the sea. Woods of evergreen gum-trees — individually
indistinguishable from this height, though each of them is a giant
between two and three hundred feet high, and of an immemorial
age — not only cover the bottom of the valley, where they come
sloping up thick to the foot of the cliffs, but also all the distant
landscape, which stretches away apparently interminably inland.
There is no way to descend into the gorge, unless a man were
lowered by rope over the rocks ; and we are told that the valley
has never been trodden by man, except by a few scientific ex-
plorers, who worked up it for several days from the other end, and
took the heights of the cliffs and many photographs of the scenery.
This is only one of the many similar valleys and ravines with which
this wonderful dividing range of the Blue Mountains is seamed
on all sides.

Got back in carriages to Blackheath station, and then on over
Mount Victoria, about twenty miles further, to the second zigzag,
by which, utilising a side valley, the railway descends to Lithgow.

We were now about ninety miles from Sydney, and at an
elevation of 3,658 feet above the sea. A little further on we
entered the Mount Clarence tunnel, about a third of a mile long,
cut through the rock. From this point there is a deep descent
for nearly two miles, in which distance we went down 300 feet
and came to the first reversing station, the gradients being 1 in 42,
and the cuttings through hard rock sixty feet deep ; in one place
there is a viaduct of five arches, each with a span of thirty feet.
The cliffs of this side valley are so high and precipitous that the
surveyors who were engaged in marking out the line had to be
lowered by means of ropes from the rocks above, and the contractor
and his men commenced the work in a similar way.

From this point the next descent is a mile in length to the second
reversing station, just 100 feet lower down. The cuttings through
the rock in this part are still deeper. About midway down there
was a tunnel excavated through a spur of rock, where three and a
half tons of gunpowder deposited in different borings were fired
simultaneously by electricity by Lady Belmore, when her husband,
as Governor, came to inspect the works. On this descent there are
also three viaducts. There are eighteen curves in this part of the
line, and its construction cost about 25,000/. per mile. The fall

582 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT, 1881.

from the Clarence tunnel to the bottom of the zigzag is 687 feet,
and the length in which this descent has been gained is five miles.
We suppose that the Pacific Railway which the Canadians are now
making through to British Columbia will cross the Rocky Mountains
by some such means as this. This " dividing range," which runs
through New South Wales north and south all the length of the
eastern side of Australia, divides a narrow strip of land along
the sea-shore from the huge plains of the interior, and was long
considered an insuperable obstacle to the progress of the colony.
The first settlers were confined to the comparatively narrow strip of
land between the hills and the sea-coast, and no passage even on
foot was found over these rugged heights till 1813.

About a mile beyond the foot of the zigzag down the Lithgow
valley is the town of that name. The place is fast becoming one of
the most thriving mining and industrial districts in the colony :
there are four collieries in active operation, copper-smelting
works, tweed manufactories, as well as iron-works with their blast
furnaces, steam hammers and rollers and other machinery. It is
clear that the New South Welshman with his industry can hold
his own very well without protective duties, such as his neighbours
think necessary to foster similar works on their soil. The whole
district is in a thriving condition, and has been called the Sheffield
of Australia.

We went over the pottery and terra-cotta works with Mr. Edward
Coombes, and also all over the colliery company's ground : this has
only been in operation for five years, and already 10,000 tons of
iron have been produced. Jars, jugs, and ginger-beer bottles, drain-
pipes of all sizes, glazed ware of all sorts and patterns, together
with bricks pressed out of the dry clay rock ready for baking, were
shown us in process of manufacture. The workpeople all were
stalwart and brawny, with ruddy faces. After lunch in the dining-
car which was here coupled on,. we started at 2.30 back up the
zigzag, although we could have wished to have run on to Bathurst,
" the city of the plains."

The most astounding feature of these plains is their capacity to
receive millions, and swallowing them up to wait open-mouthed
for more. Vast and silent, fertile yet waste, field-like yet untilled,
they have room for all the teeming multitudes that have poured or
can pour from England. Nature has here placed hedgeless, gateless,
free to all, a green field for the support of half the human race.
Water for drinking is scarce, but artesian wells succeed ; and with

1881. LOOKING OUT INTO AUSTRALIA. 583

water all is possible. Where artesian wells are frequent and irriga-
tion goDeral, belts of timber will become possible upon the plains,
and once planted these will in their turn mitigate the extremes of
climate. Cultivation itself brings rain. Some persons, however,
ignoring wells, assert that the " up-country desert " or " un-
watered tracts " can never be made available for agriculture ; the
same statements were made only a few years back of lands now
bearing a prosperous population of agricultural settlers.

" Malthusianism has small chance with those who know the
Australian downs, full of life, full of charm, lovely indeed but
never wearisome, now great rolling uplands of enormous sweep, now
boundless grassy plains ; they have all the grandeur of monotony
and yet continual change. Sometimes the grand distances are
broken by the mountains, or rugged bluffs. Over all there is a
sparkling atmosphere and rarely-failing breeze ; the air is bracing
even when most hot; the sky is cloudless. A solitude which no
words can paint, the boundless prairie-like swell conveys an idea of
vastness which is the overpowering feature of the plains."

George, Commodore Wilson, and Sir Jobn Robertson rode for
some distance on the engine, and enjoyed the fine outlook through
the thin pure mountain air over the hill-tops, all covered with
trees, that stretch for miles away into the distance like a huger
Mount Lofty : here and there their blue surface is broken by rocky
summit or red sandstone peaks that stand up. At Lawson — all the
stations upon this portion of the line are named after the first
explorers who penetrated these regions, Blaxland, Wentworth, and
Lawson — where the engine stopped to take water, there was a man
with some cured snake skins. There was no sign of any habitation
near, except a new wooden hotel in course of construction. Wander-
ing away a little distance into the woods the utter stillness was
very impressive. There was no bird or creature or movement of
the air to break the silence, which is said to be overwhelmingly
monotonous after a time to those who come up here in the summer
from Sydney. In that stillness, as you stand alone, seems to sound
the echo of the command given to the forefathers of the human
race when they stepped forth into a solitary world — " Crescite et
multiplicamini, et ingredimini super terram, et implete eam "
(Gen. ix. 7).

We reached the Bedfem station at 7.30, and heard the news of
poor Dean Stanley's death. The Freemasons gave a ball this
evening to the Admiral and squadron, to which over 1,500 guests

584 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

were invited. We were both to have gone, but were too tired :
we heard from the Governor who went that some of the dances
were very pretty, and that the various Masonic costumes produced
striking effects.

July 2lst. — Off to the Inconstant as usual before breakfast, where
we remained all day. In the afternoon the Admiral gave a dance
on board, to which about 200 people came. Admiral made the
signal to-day — " Squadron will sail for Auckland on Saturday,
the 23rd."

JtUy 22nd. — Planted a couple of trees in the Botanical Gai'den,
close to the spot where, April 2nd, 1868, the Duke of Edinburgh
did the same. Sir Patrick Jennings and Mr. Morris came to
Government House and gave us each silver Exhibition medals, and
a couple of albums full of photographs of the city and country
round. In the forenoon, while the Admiral with the officers of the
Inconstant were all being photographed on the quarter-deck, he was
suddenly seized with a fainting fit and remained insensible for
three hours. Anangements had been made for a large ball at
Government House which, as it is the last evening the squadron is
expected to stay at Sydney, the Governor could not well put off.
There were 1,300 people there, and besides the ball-room, hall and
drawing-room, two large marquees had been thrown out into the
garden and boarded in for dancing. One of these enclosed the
large fountain, round which camellias and all sorts of flowers and
greenery had been arranged. The gardens were also illuminated
with Chinese lanterns. The band of the Permanent force played
the dance music. Before the ball began the squadron in Farm Cove
was serenaded by German residents in Sydney and the Lieder-'
tafel ; they went off in several steam launches, in one of which
they worked an electric light. There were half a dozen pieces per-
formed by the band and a dozen choruses sung. The bluejackets
cheered them repeatedly from the different ships, and sang in
response several seamen's songs in ringing unison.

July 23rd. — Said " good-bye " to every one at Government House
and went on board the Inconstant ; the detached squadron will sail
at 2 P.M. for Auckland, New Zealand, where we are to remain five
days, and then on to Fiji, where we remain four days. We wonder
whether the Bacchante will be able to rejoin the squadron at either
of those places. At 1.30 P.M. the Governor came on board the
flagsfiip to say " good-bye " to the Admiral. All the four ships of
the squadron had steam up and had shortened in, when at the last

1881. SAILING OF THE SQUADRON IS POSTPONED. 585

moment tlie medical authorities forbade the 'Admiral to go to sea,
and while he is so ill the sailing of the squadron is postponed.
There are hundreds of people all along the shore -waiting to see
the Inconstant,' Tourmalins, Carysfort, and Cleopatra go out, and
also a great many boats and yaohts on the water : it is a great sell
for them all. Fires are kept banked in case we can get away to-
morrow. H.M.S. Emerald, Capt. W. H. Maxwell, came into harbour
this evening from among the islands ; she has visited many where
no Queen s ship has been for ten years ; the islanders thought they
had been " given up," more especially as the French are rapidly
annexing in the Pacific. Three groups of islands have been
absorbed this year (1881) — ^Tubuai and Raivavai, Tuamotu, Gam-
bier and Rapa. Last year Tahiti and Moorea were taken. There
is not now a single group in Eastern Polynesia, stretching across the
Pacific from Panama to New Zealand, which has not fallen to
France : that power has forestalled the opening of M. de Lesseps^s
canal by quietly assuming possession of all the possible harbours
and coaling stations on the direct line of traffic. The trade of the
whole lot with France does not amount to 200,000/. a year.

[The chief possession of France, however, in the Pacific is New
Caledonia, which was discovered, named, and taken possession of
for England by Captain Cook, Some five-and-twenty years ago the
British Government was pressed to occupy the island upon a sus-
picion that it was coveted by France. The Colonial Office of that
day replied that " No foreign nation had any idea of occupying
New Caledonia, or could possibly want the island." Within six
months of that reply (in 1853), under protest from Great Britain,
the French flag was hoisted at Noumea. A penal settlement was
established in 1862 on the island ; this (like the older French
establishments at Cayenne, which have been a source of great
trouble and expense to some of our West Indian colonies, especially
British Guiana and Trinidad, whither frequent batches of convicts
escape) has been a constant annoyance, danger, and expense to the
Australian colonies ever since. Nothing was done with the island
during Napoleon III.'s reign, but in 1872 thirteen hundred com-
munists (amongst whom was M. Henri Rochefort) were shipped ofiF
here. Since then the Recidivists Law has been entered on the
statute-book of France. This, as everybody knows, is a measure in
view of the great increase of crime in France for transporting for
life to New Caledonia, the Loyalty Isles, and the Marquesas Islands,
habitual criminals — " r^cidivistes et malfaiteurs d'habitude," in

586 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

which terms are included all who have been twice convicted at the
assizes, or four times before a magistrate, or brought before the
police six times for begging ; in short the whole criminal population
of France. The project is to transport 60,000 to New Caledonia and
23,000 to the other islands. In the first year 5,000 will be sent at
once to the Loyalty and Marquesas groups, M. GreviUe-R^ache,
who reported the Bill last year when it was first introduced in the
Chamber of Deputies, frankly described the class of persons whom
it would deport as steeped in vice and debauchery and every kind
of crime — " hommes dangereux, perdus de vices, us^s par la
d^bauche, souilMs de tons les crimes." Though banished for life
(**la relegation consistera dans Tinternement perp^tuel des con-
damn^ "), they were to be quite free on landing (" en r^um^, le
transport^ k son arriv^e dans la colonic sera libre ") ; and the object
of the Bill was to relieve France from the burden of enduring their
pestilent existence : "en d(^barrasser la patrie" was the phrase used.
These criminals are to get some support from Government when
they are first landed ; but after that they must shift for themselves
— " ils vivront corame ils pourront." As there is hardly any work
in the islands for the few who may be willing to support them-
selves, the Bill is virtually an instruction to them to run away to
Australia or starve. Thus 20,000 additional criminals are likely to
be despatched to the Pacific within three years. The consequences
of this are foreshadowed by a highly competent authority in
Noumea, himself long a superior functionary in the convict
administration. He writes : —

" The state of disorder in the penal establishments is indescrib'
able. There is no discipline, no safety for the criminals, who, old
and young, are huddled together without supervision, no security
for the free settlers. Our warders are corrupt, dishonest, immoral.
They detest their employment and are insuflSciently paid. It will
not be less terrible for New Caledonia than for the adjacent islands.
Escape is becoming easier every day. Industrious French settlers
in Australia feel themselves already under the ban of suspicion that
they have either escaped or been released from New Caledonia,
The prisons contain more and more refugees. Ten were recently
recognised in a single house of detention, and many more are un-
discovered. Six hundred names on our muster-roll find no response
on the island; and there are 2,000 liber4s free to go anywhere except
to France. Of course, they make for and remain in Australia — that
paradis terrestre. What will happen when our numbers are increased

1881. THE FRENCH IN THE PACIFIC. 687

by the operation of the " Loi des R^cidivistes '* I cannot tell. The
consequences to New Caledonia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands
will be fearful."

It is impossible to add to this picture of the state of New
Caledonia, drawn by the hand of one of the French officials as to what
was passing under his own eyes in that already overcrowded island.

There are many parts of the year during which the prevailing
winds, smooth sea, and fine weather enables a voyage to be made
in an open boat from New Caledonia to Australia with comparative
ease and safety. To the Australian and New Zealand colonist the
presence of these hardened criminals means the insecurity of all
life and property in thousands of homes scattered throughout the
bush, the exchange of the peaceful freedom of country life for the
constant and wearing dread of impending danger ; it means a vast
increase of the machinery for repressing crime, and a correspond-
ing burden of taxation on all classes of the community. The
Australian prisons now contain a very large number of Frenchmen,
who have formerly been in New Caledonia. In New South Wales
alone there are known besides these to be 300 French criminals
who have come here with the connivance and knowledge of the
French authorities. They are not escapees, so they cannot be ap-
prehended : they have served a term of imprisonment and have
received a conditional pardon, which binds them only not to return
to France. The French Consul does not pretend that they are
reformed. Most of them have to be incessantly watched by the
police, and the burden of thus watching them is a heavy one.
Gangs of French coiners and burglars are constantly being taken
in Melbourne, Ballarat, and other towns. In the country they take
to bushranging, in the cities they gravitate to the lairs in which
outcasts herd. It is scarcely to be wondered at, therefore, that the
Colonies intend to enforce combined protective measures against
this immigration of criminals : a very stringent law has been passed
by the colonial legislatures whereby French criminals will be tried
without jury : lOOZ. fine will be levied on the captain of every ship
that lands convicts (whether he knows it or not) and six months'
imprisonment. If this is not found sufficient, all French ships will
be absolutely excluded from Australian ports, and every Frenchman
found in the colonies without a licence will become ipso facto an
outlaw. Whether England assists them or not the Australians are
determined to keep the offscourings of the French gaols out of
their dominions. They have also received official notice from Xord

588 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT, 1881.

Derby that " Her Majesty's Government will not interfere should
the Australian Legislatures combine in a well-considered measure
to protect themselves against the landing of criminals." In other
words, the Colonial Office has at last recognised that the feeling of
our colonists is no longer to be despised, and that the Imperial
policy cannot be based wholly on the desire to spare French " sus-
ceptibilities." This question of the French criminal settlements is
the greatest colonial question of the time, for besides the injuries
which these hordes of ruffians work to the Australians is the
annoyance and trouble they occasion in all the outlying groups of
islands in the Western Pacific, thereby greatly multiplying the
work of the English Navy and British High Commissioner. It is
hard to secure fair treatment for the natives of the Pacific Islands
from ordinary European settlers. It may be imagined what they
receive from the refuse of France ? To ourselves the question
threatens a French war. The Australians say clearly that they
will resist the importation of criminals to these seas at all costs.
They resisted and defeated this country upon a precisely similar
question many years ago. What they would not sujQTer from their
own countrymen they will not suffer from strangers. And if they
are driven into such a quarrel, assuredly no party in England could
let them stand alone.

To the remonstrances of the British ambassador in Paris the
French Ministry have coolly replied that the transport of criminals to
New Caledonia, or any other French colony, is " une affaire d'ordre
purement int^rieur," with which no foreign power has any concern :
and that the Australian colonists are unnecessarily excited, and
that their objections are not sincere. But surely France cannot
fail to listen to the dictates of common sense, economy, and self-
interest, even if she is deaf to the appeals of humanity and neigh-
bourly feeling. By temperate and earnest representations we may
still hope to demonstrate to her Government the extent of their
delusion as to the fancied success of the old English convict system,
by which they are at present misled, and the nature of the trouble
which they will assuredly bring upon themselves as well as others
by their persistence in it. French transportation to New Caledonia
is enormously costly ; it promotes crime, it rears criminals, it acts in
no sense as a deterrent, it impedes commerce, it inflicts grievous
injury upon native races, and it outrages humanity. The Australian
Governments fully appreciate the value of the friendship of France.
They wish to live on terms of harmony with all men. But their

1881. THE NEW HEBRIDES. 589

determination is justly unanimous to enforce any measures, however
stringent or injurious to French mercantile relations in the Pacific,
in order to prevent the possibility of convicts gaining British shores.
If these arguments, however, are of no avail, there is another
alternative which, if adopted by England and France, may settle
this vexed question in a manner satisfactory to both countries. Let
England buy France out of the close neighbourhood to Australia,
and exchange the Falkland Islands for New Caledonia on such
terms as might be agreed upon. This would at once provide
France with what she thinks she needs, a convenient place to send
her criminals, and at the same time would relieve the Australian
colonies of a great and constantly-growing nuisance (p. 307). This
would be by far the best solution of the diflSculty, for there are
other questions of an irritating character connected with the con-
tiguity of these French settlements which embitter the relations
of France to Australasia, and amongst them is the vague and un-
satisfactory position in which we stand to the New Hebrides.
Forty-four years ago this group of islands was undoubtedly part of
New Zealand; as is clear from the charter of 1840. Then an
obscure " understanding " was arrived at between the Governments
of France and England — nobody knows how or when — that we
should recognise the neutrality of the New Hebrides. Some six
years ago it was rumoured in Australia that France was going to
annex the group. The French ambassador, when denying the truth
of this report, induced the English Foreign Secretary to declare
formally that Her Majesty's Government had no thought "of
changing the condition of independence which the New Hebrides
now enjoy." The Premier of New Zealand, Sir George Grey, was,
however, warned that the New Hebrides were no longer part of
the ''British Empire, and that England had no intention of
extending a protectorate over them.

It is a significant fact, however, that when in 1877 the Western
Pacific Order in Council was drawn up, establishing the High
Commissioner's jurisdiction and court for dealing with British
subjects all over the Pacific Islands, the New Hebrides were not
mentioned. And it is still more curious that in spite of this
omission the High Commissioner, without being challenged by the
Colonial OflSce, sent Captain Bridge, R.N., to act as his Deputy-
Commissioner in these islands. On May 8th, 1883, a debate in
the French Chamber first revealed the fact that Frenchmen from
New Caledonia had acquired concessions of property in the New

690 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

Hebrides ; it was suggested that the French Government should
grant to a company formed for working these concessions a charter
of government similar to that obtained by the North Borneo
Company from England. It was taken as assumed that France
had enough power and authority over the New Hebrides to grant
such a charter, and from that time till now it has not been possible
to ascertain whether the " understanding " between England and
France would admit of such an instrument. Then there are other
irritating questions concerning the right to certain islets and guano
reefs of the Raiatea group, which France and England bound them- .
selves nearly forty years ago never to take possession of, but on
which the French flag has been flying for some time. Our Govern-
ment protested against this, but their remonstrance was disregarded,
and the French Government replied that, while regretting the un-
authorised act of a subordinate, a regard for their prestige made
it difficult to withdraw ; they proposed, therefore, that we should
sanction their taking Raiatea, and they would bind themselves
afresh to go no further. It is difficult to see why the second treaty
is more likely to be respected than the first, or why we should
submit to the more serious loss of prestige involved in thus
abandoning the native inhabitants, whom we have bound ourselves
to protect, and who strongly object to being thus annexed.

In June, 1883, Lord Normanby, as Governor of Victoria, reported
that " his Government are of opinion that the annexation or pro-
tectorate of the New Hebrides and the islands lying between New
Guinea and Fiji upto New Britain is essential to the fixture welfare of
the Australian colonies, and urged immediate action." He said :
" It is of vital importance to the Australasian colonies containing
a British population of over three million souls, and representing
the best enterprise of the mother-country, that those lands should
not become possessions of a foreign power, and that such a sink of
moral pollution should not be permitted to exist at the portals of
our Southern Britain. With a deep feeling of this threatened
wrong, and a strong sense of the lasting national misfortune that
would be entailed upon us all, the various colonies have already
strongly remonstrated with the Imperial authorities ; and a conven-
tion comprising representatives of those colonies which is now
about to assemble at Sydney will deal specially with the matter,
as well as the question of federation. This will be the means, I
hope, of inducing the mother-country, upon whom the duty rests
of conserving the national character of this portion of the empire.

1881. DETERMINATION OF AUSTRALIA. 591

to take effectual measures in order to avert such a calamity.
Whether our object be attained by annexation or by the establish-
ment of a protectorate is not material. Our end and aim should
be to prevent an occupation of the islands by foreigners, as such
occupation would be a standing menace to our peaceful shores."

The Governments of New Zealand, New South Wales, Queens-
land, and Tasmania also strongly urged the adoption of prompt
measures to avert the annexation of these Pacific Islands by France.
On August 31st, 1883, Lord Derby replied, setting forth that " Her
Majesty's Government are far from being satisfied that the assump-
tion of the responsibilities which a protectorate over the New
Hebrides and other islands would involve isnecessary or justifiable.
He saw no objection in principle to the establishment of an under-
standing, if we can be so fortunate as to come to one, by which
both the French and English Governments shall undertake to
respect the independence of these islands. Some proposal of the
kind passed, but in a very vague and informal manner, between
the two Governments some six years ago, but he did not think that
we need have any peculiar fear of the action of French settlers in
the islands, because we must remember that the French are not,
in general, a great colonising people " (cp. p. 337, note).

Except to those people who are capable of believing that the
world is flat, it must be perfectly obvious that the New Hebrides
cannot indefinitely remain unannexed by some European nation.
If there is anything more utterly foolish in our colonial policy
than the cowardly habit of letting things drift it would be making
" understandings " with France. We have had some experience
of what that has meant in Egypt; we had an understanding
about Madagascar, and we see what has come of it. The New
Hebrides are now under no recognised authority. The labour
traffic has led to perpetual collisions between white men and
black, which there has been no authority to restrain. It was in
this group that Bishop Patteson was martyred. The natives, who
express fear and hatred of the French because of the way in which
they have treated the natives of all the other Pacific islands they
have annexed, have over and. over again petitioned the Crown,
through the Colonial Office, for annexation to Great Britain — in
18(12, in 1868, in 1872, in 1874, 1875, 1877, and in 1882— in the
hope that their islands might be made another Fiji. The European
residents are almost exclusively British; fourteen Scotch Pres-
byterian missionaries and 150 native teachers are employed at this

592 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

time evangelising the islands ; in this work 6,000Z. of British
and Australian money is annually expended. On the thirteen
islands of this group are 8,000 professed Christians; all their
churches have been built by British missionary enterprise ; by
the same agency the Scriptures have been translated, printed, and
distributed in nine different languages. All the imports of the
islands are British, all their exports are to British colonies. The
natives are an industrious, hard-working race, depending on their
farms, and growing maize, cotton, coffee, arrowroot, and spices.
On some of the islands are ruins of large stone buildings, remains
of a former civilisation, resembling the old communal dwellings
that have been discovered in Yucatan and other parts of Central
America. Their excellent and spacious harbours, their abundant
supply of the best fresh water, and their proximity to the Austra^
lian colonies, would in time of war make the New Hebrides, if
possessed by a hostile power, dangerous to British interests and to
British commerce in the south seas. For these reasons, but chiefly
because the only effectual way of suppressing the irregular labour
traffic in these seas is to bring the islands themselves under British
control, the Australian Governments desire that it may be done.

If the islands were taken by the French all the Protestant
missionaries would be expelled, as they have invariably been else-
where under similar circumstances ; and even if France promised
not to turn the convicts loose upon them, the natives would be
treated as all others have been on other French islands. The
motives of the Australians, the Aborigines Protection Society, and
the Missionaries are probably widely different ; but the three are
unanimous in urging the Imperial Government to take possession
of these unannexed islands, and there are many signs that the
time has come for a definite settlement of the question.

The despatch which the Agents-General of New South Wales,
New Zealand, Victoria, and Queensland, expressing the unanimous
feeling of the four greatest Australasian colonies on this matter,
presented to Lord Derby, concludes in these manly and temperate
words: — "In once more urging these wishes on Her Majesty's
Government the colonists have not come as suppliants for some
light favour, but as Englishmen to whom their country has given
a great destiny, which must be kept from harm : desiring no
new territories for themselves, but asking that the Queen s subjects
may enjoy the blessings of peace and order where now the law has
no terrors for the evil-doer ; not seeking by a clearer policy to set new

1881. THE MABQUIS DE RAYS. 593

burdens on the British taxpayer, but willing themselves to bear its
costs, and welcoming with gladness an invitation to be associated
with the Imperial Government in a work which must assuredly be
done one day, and can as certainly be best done now."]

July 24tth. — On board all day. There was no music at the
morning service on account of the Admiral's illness. The crowds
lining the shore are if anything greater to-day than those who
came yesterday expecting to see us off, but now our departure
is " indefinitely postponed."

July 2oth, — We remained on board all day ; usual harbour
routine ; school in the forenoon and afternoon with Mr. Clarke, the
Naval Instructor.

There was a gigs race between the Cleopatra and Miranda, which
was easily won by the former, and her Plymouth-built boat held its
own against one built at Sydney in which the Mirandas rowed.

Have just heard of the successful planting out by the New South
Wales Government up country of the remnants of the Marquis de
Rays's efforts at French colonisation in the Pacific. It struck this
scoundrel that money might be made by starting a new colony.
He accordingly in 1877 advertised land for sale at " Port Breton,"
in New Ireland, an island near New Caledonia chiefly remarkable
for its general deficiency in food, water, and other things usually
considered necessary to the support of man. The rest of the story
reads like a fragment from the time of the South Sea Company or
the Darien scheme. The Marquis bought some of the land on the
island from a native for two bales of tobacco, a red robe, axes, and
glass beads (valued at 62Z.), formed a company under the highest
religious and Legitimist auspices, there to revive the glories of old
France before the Revolution, and sold about one hundred times
as much land as the island contains ; thereby pocketing some two
hundred thousand pounds sterling. Titles of nobility and places
of dignity were freely disposed of. Six joint stock companies
for refining sugar and working mines undertook to develop the
resources of this new French colony. The unfortunate speculators
who had invested their money in the company were shipped off in
1880 in a miserably-appointed vessel, under a drunken captain,
and were left on the barren island in the South Seas with a fort-
night's provisions. Four other shiploads followed. Needless to
say they died fast ; and at length, after the most terrible suffer-
ings, a wretched remnant were rescued by H.M.S. Gonjlict and
taken to Queensland, and forty others found their way to Sydney.

VOL. I. Q Q

594 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

*'A cemetery with seventy graves" is said to be the only vestige
at "Port Breton" of this attempt at French colonisation. The
Marquis, though a very religious and married man, was enjoying
himself in Paris with a mistress ** who invented a new tooth-powder,
while his victims were succumbing to hunger and disease." He
was afterwards tried in Paris, and was sentenced to four years
imprisonment and 1 20/. fine.

July 26th. — On board all the forenoon. Landed in the afternoon
and went with a couple of our messmates to play lawn-tennis in the
garden. Afterwards off to the ship by the usual oflScers' boat.

July 27th. — This. morning Sir Arthur and Miss Kennedy arrived
from Brisbane ; the latter will stay on board the flagship to help
to nurse the Admiral, and the former is up at Government House.
At 2.30 P.M. Lady Augustus Loftus called alongside in the Wolve-
rines barge, and we joined her and crossed over to the north shore,
and then landing there drove up to St. Leonard's cemetery to visit
Commodore Goodenough's grave ; he lies between two bluejackets
who were murdered at the same time ; it is a nice monument. We
also saw in the same cemetery the grave of Captain Owen Stanley,
the brother of the poor Dean of Westminster ; he died at the age
of thirty- eight, when his ship, the Rattlesnake, that had been em-
ployed surveying the coral reefs of the South Seas, was lying in
Port Jackson. The country on this side of the harbour stretches
away north and looks very pretty. Coming back to the jetty we
noticed the '' Royal Princes Hotel," probably the youngest in the
place. We dined at Government House in the evening, and Sir
Arthur Kennedy told us several anecdotes about the Chinese. He
was once Governor at Hong-kong, and is now at Brisbane ; he says
that he and Miss Kennedy and her maid are the only Europeans he
allows in his house, every one else is a Chinaman. He also spoke
about the uselessness of attempting to keep out the Chinese im-
migration to Australia ; they will come, and the only thing to be
done is to deal wisely with them. [They appear, however, to meet
with a cold reception wherever they go. They have lately been
emigrating on an unusually large scale to New South Wales ; 700
of them arriving in one steamer alone from Hong-kong, while
others are reported as being on their way. This influx of the
Celestials created great excitement at Sydney, and a requisition
was presented to the Mayor, asking him to call a public meeting
to discuss the question and devise some means of preventing the
unwelcome foreigners from coming in such unreasonable numbers

1881.

THE BACCHANTE ARRIVES.

595

to the colony, where, it is alleged, their services axe not required.
The Trades and Labour Council, representing the working classes,
was also thrown into a state of alarm and indignation, and strongly
urged action in the matter. It is believed that unless some steps
are taken to check the tide of immigration not fewer than 20,000
Chinese will arrive in New South Wales during the year, who will
become a burden on their fellow-countrymen already settled at
Sydney. In the meantime the Premier has put himself in com-
munication with the British authorities in China on the subject,
and somebody will, it is hoped, point out to the Chinese the bad
taste they display in interfering with foreign labour-markets.]

IN FARM COVE, PORT JACKSON, NEW SOUTH WALES.

Datb.

Wind.

Tempkbaturb.

Sea.

Air.

Noon.

6 P.M.

NOOD.

6 P.M.

July

•

S.W. 5-6, S.E., S.W. 1-3

S. 8-4, S.W. toS.E. 1-3

- 63

Variable 1

31S.
Aug.

Calm, S. 2-5

S. to S.E. 2-4, S.W. 1

Variable 1

S. W. andS. 12

Variable 1-3

7S.

Variable 1-2

Variable 1

W. Aire

July 2Sth. — At 8.30 A.M. the Bacchante came in and anchored ;
she left Melbourne last Monday at 6 p.m., and had her twelve hours
full speed trial on the way round, and averaged fourteen knots per
hour ; on the trial she ran 166 knots. She anchored just inside the
Heads shortly after midnight, having done the 570 miles in fifty-
four hours, averaging thus a little over ten knots on the whole
distance. Her long black hull looks very natural, and we can
recognise many of her hands at this distance in the rigging and
on the poop, but we do not know yet whether we shall rejoin
her. Her rudder is all right now. She re-shipped it on the
22nd, having gone the previous day — after hoisting out her

Q Q 2

598 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

powder and shell — into the Royal Alfred Graving Dock at
Williamstown, her draught at the time being 19 feet 11 inches
forward, and 22 feet 10 inches aft, with water in the five fore-
most watertight compai-tments. On the 23rd the ship went out
of dock, and took in her powder and shell. A tea and a soiree
was given to the ship's company by the temperance societies of
Williamstown.

This afternoon we went by steamer sixteen miles up the Para-
matta river to Paramatta. The river banks at first are rocky, but
higher up they slope away and are covered with woods and trees
do>vn to the water's edge, with clearances here and there for houses
or fields : we stopped at several jetties and landing-places on either
side, but there were not many passengers. Ryde, with a couple of
churches on the top of its hill, seemed one of the chief villages; we
passed several stone-laden barges and heavy cargo boats and ho3S
with stores dropping down the river with the tide to Sydney.
Passed the iron railway bridge, which swings open in order to let
the steamer go by. No hills are visible from the water ; it is a
cold day with wind. We landed in a wood two and a half miles
below Paramatta, because it was low water and the steamer could
go no higher. Had to run up to the town in order to catch the
train, passed the man harnessing the horses to the omnibus at the
entrance to the town, who ought to have been at the landing-
stage to meet the boat ; he seemed in no hurry, however, and
quietly asked if she were in. As a township it is nearly as old as
Sydney : it was here that the first wheat in Australia was planted
and grown : the Governor used to have a residence here, fifteen
miles from Sydney : the old park is now a public recreation ground.
There are several large mills in the town on the river. Left at
6.23, arrived at Sydney at 6 P-M., and caught the officers' boat ofiF
to the Inconstant.

Jtdy 29th. — Usual drills and school. Had dinner at twelve and
at 1.30 P.M. went on shore in the officers' boat and into the town to
Hudson's railway carriage manufactory, which was very interesting,
more especially as there are no protection duties here in order to sup-
port such colonial enterprise. We went over all the workshops and
saw the turning machinery, circular saws, and no end of fine woods,
which they were also making into various articles of furniture. It
is stated that this company has successfully competed with those in
Victoria : and is able actually to manufacture goods and import them
into Victoria at a considerable profit even after paying the heavy

1881. NEW SOUTH WALES TRADE. 597

protection dues levied at the frontier. The railway carriages are
all constructed on the American principle. OflF to the Inconstant
afterwards.

July SOth, — Bear- Admiral the Earl of Clanwilliam, C.B., shifted
his flag to the fore on promotion to Vice-Admiral. The Wolverine
saluted the flag and her salute was returned by the Tourmaline
instead of by tlie Inconstant, in consequence of the Admiral's illness ;
he is, however, getting much better. At 1 p.m. we went in Captain
Hixson's steam launch, with the StaflF-Commander and one or two
messmates, first up Darling Harbour, which lies on the west side of
the city. It is entirely surrounded with private wharfs, alongside
which lie steamers and vessels of the deepest draught : there is a
depth of forty feet or more of water even along-side the banks for ten
miles up the Paramatta River, so there is practically no limit to the
wharfage and dockyard accommodation that could be provided. The
clanking of hammers, and noise of hundreds of steam-engines, the
gas works, the floating dock, the black mass of shipping, all bear
witness to the truth of the astonishing fact that the tonnage of the
vessels tliat enter the port of Sydney yearly is now already in excess
of that which entered the port of London when the Queen came to
the throne by over 600,000 tons. The trade of the colony with the
United Kingdom has more than doubled itself within the last ten
years, and in addition to this it has now a colonial and foreign trade
of upwards of fifteen millions a year. The value of the imports
this year (1881) at the port of Sydney alone shows an increase of
25 per cent, over those of last year. Half of these were from
the United Kingdom and nearly the other half from British
colonies — a very small proportion were from foreign countries.
The increase in the exports of this year was 12 per cent, over
those of last year, though in the aggregate their value exceeded
those of the imports ; half of them went to the United Kingdom
and nearly the other half to British colonies, a still smaller propor-
tion of trade than in the case of imports being with foreign coun-
tries. Such is the trade of Sydney now, and since it is, moreover,
the nearest point of Australia to the great continent of America, its
future, when the Panama Canal is open, will be still more assured.
Who could have imagined that in 1881 this port of Sydney should
in the tonnage of ships entering it, exclusive of the coasting service
have far surpassed the tonnage entering the port of London fifty
years ago ? And yet this is the fact, for against 4,482 vessels of a
tonnage of 854,172 that entered the port of London in 1833 there

598 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

entered the port of Sydney in the year 1881 no less than 2,254
vessels with an aggregate tonnage of 1,456,239. This is the port
of Sydney alone, the port of Newcastle has an amount of tonnage
entering it almost as large. The tonnage entering and leaving
the port of Liverpool in 1884 was 8,571,454 tons, and the number
of vessels 21,529. The value of the trade entering and leaving
the ports of London and Liverpool amounts to 400 millions of
money. The Tyne, the Humber, and the Clyde may be credited
with 150 millions between them: Bristol and the adjacent iron and
coal ports will stand for a like sum. Of this the colonies already
take more than one-third, and their ratio is rapidly increasing.
The cargoes and ships of the British Mercantile Marine afloat at
any one time represent 1,000 millions sterling.

[The total exports of New South Wales in 1884 were over
eighteen million pounds sterling, the total imports nearly twenty-
three millions. The present mainstay of Australian prosperity, as it
was also for many years that of England, is the woolsack. Next to
wool, of which over nine millions were exported in 1883 (and out of
that six million pounds sterling worth went to Great Britain), the
most important articles of export were tin, copper, and preserved
meat. The imports ai*e nearly all articles of British manufacturing
industry — iron, apparel, and cotton goods — to the value of over eight
millions. The yearly total of the trade of Australasia reaches 115
millions sterling (more than the whole foreign trade of Great Britain
at the accession of the Queen), and in it some three million colonists
are concerned : whereas in Canada, with four and a halt millions of
people, the trade is not quite fifty millions. While the United
States buy the productions of the United Kingdom to the amount
of 7s. per head, France 7s. Sd., Germany 9s. 2d., Canada and other
colonies go to the extent of 3^. per head, but the value taken by
Australia is 81. 10s. per head ; so that Australia actually con-
sumes, in proportion to its population, a larger quantity of English
manufactures than are consumed per head in Great Britain.
Hence every Englishman coming out here contributes more to
swell British trade than if he remained at home. The colony
spends 150,000/. a year in bringing out emigrants. One-seventh
only of the whole colony, or about the acreage of England and
Wales, has yet been sold. So there is plenty of room for more.]

We next proceeded four miles higher up the river, after passing
Mort and Co/s dry dock and engineering works at Waterview Bay,
to Cockatoo Island, where we landed and went over the Fitzroy

1881. BOUND ABOUT PORT JACKSON. 699

dock, into which the Galatea was taken for repair from February 4th
to 24th, 1868. The dock is 445 feet long, and has more than 20 feet
of water on the sill. We also went over the Australasian Steam
Navigation Company's mail steamer City of Sydney, that happened
to be lying there : she is of 3,400 tons burden; we went all over her
saloons, large state rooms, and deck houses. There are five steamers
of the same size that carry a monthly mail across the Pacific,
vid New Zealand and San Francisco for America and Europe.
Afterwards we ran up the Paramatta River as far as the railway
bridge, then turned and went down to " Middle Harbour," which
is a sort of Port Jackson in miniature, and has an area of three
square miles (about the size of Richmond Park) ; it lies just inside
the Heads, and under the northern shore : the high bluff ** Middle
Head," which shuts it in on its southern side, when seen out at
sea between the two Heads appears to bar as with a wall all further
entrance ; hence Captain Cook sailed by without attempting to
enter Port Jackson. As we passed under it to-day a slight swell
came rolling in, which caused the steam launch to wobble about
a bit, until we got under the low and wooded shore of Middle
Harbour. We landed at Clontarf, one of the picnicking grounds,
on the east side of Middle Harbour, and saw the tree planted on
the spot where the Duke of Edinburgh was shot about 3 p.m. on
March 12th, 1868, at a monster picnic in aid of the funds of the
Sailors Home. There was no one about to-day : a few seats under
the trees, a wooden dancing-shed or two, an open level grass plot
with gum-trees and hills in the background was all. We had no
time to go further up this harbour or behind the sandy spit, as
we had to be on board the flagship by 5 P.M. We returned under
the shore on the south side of Sydney Harbour, passing in front
of many of the coves surrounded with gardens and villas of
all sorts and styles, and ran down between Qoat Island and
Gai den Island. On the latter some of the men who came out in the
first convict fleet, in 1788, formed a garden, and on it a couple of
the first magnates of the colony were buried : it is the largest of
the islands in the harbour, and contains nine or ten acres ; there
is nothing on it now but an ordnance depot. Then we steamed
in front of Woolomoloo Bay back to Farm Cove and the anchorage,
which we reached in the red glow of a glorious evening. H.M.S.
Miranda, Commander Hon. E. S. Dawson, passed us going out of
harbour; she is starting for the New Hebrides to inquire into the
circumstances connected with the May Queen massacre. She will

600 ON BOARD ILM.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

then proceed to Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia (the
French convict station), and afterwards will go to the Solomon
Islands.

July Sid. — The Admiral is much better; Sir Arthur and Miss
Kennedy came oflf to the flagship to morning service, which we
had, as usual, on the main deck. A good many people are visiting
the various ships of the squadron. We remained on board all day.

August 1st. — Left the Inconstant at 8 A.M. in the steam launch,
Nea^ with the staflf commander and Lieutenant Percy Scott, and
Napier, Cooper Key, and Hutchinson, from the gun-room. We
picked up Lord Charles Scott, Le Marchant and Henderson,
alongside the Bacchante, and also Mr. Bloxsome (the Governor's
private secretary). Captain Nathan (A.D.C.), and Mr. Jeanneret
(our hospitable host for the day) at the man-of-war stairs, and then
steamed right down the harbour and across under the North Head
to Manly Beach, which was so called by Captain Phillip, on account
of the bold, intelligent, manly appearance of the tribe of abori-
gines that he met here at their headquarters. They are now only
a memory and a name. The surf is breaking at the foot of the
Heads, and upon the south of these we see the preparations for
the new lighthouse which is to carry the electric light : although
the present one is 430 feet above sea level, and in this clear, dry
atmosphere — they never have fogs here — can be seen thirty miles
out at sea. On the North Head is the quarantine station and a
few tents on the slope for the present small -pox patients. The blue
swell from the Pacific is rolling in on the right as we to-day again
pass under Middle Head on the left, and then make our way up
North Harbour to the pier there. It was a beautiful morning, and
having landed we got into two coach waggonettes that were waiting,
and drove away past the boarding and lodging houses, their inmates
all agog and a-flutter, to Newport on Pittwater. The first five
miles of the road out of Manly is in excellent order. We drove in
a north-west direction for some distance through level bush and
a heavily-wooded country ; the road then ran towards the coast
and opened out upon a small lagoon called *'Peewhy" or long
reef ; here, to-day, the hull of a coasting steamer which had gone
ashore was lying stranded and deserted, though she looked com-
paratively uninjured by the sea. The grass road skirted the shores
for some little way ; until rising it afterwards came out upon a fair-
sized country house, from the top of the hill near which we obtained
a fine outlook on the one side of the Pacific, and the round basaltic

1881. VISIT TO THE HAWKESBURY RIVER. 601

hills which run to the bold headlands of Broken Bay, and on
the other of grassy, park-like stretches. of land. Seven miles
from Manly we came upon Narrabeen, another lagoon three miles
long and in some places over a mile broad, but not quite so
much where we crossed it through the shallows. It is surrounded
by bold-looking and well-wooded hills, which slope down to the
water s edge : on it we saw to-day a number of wild black swan.
After a three miles further drive we reached Pittwater, a long arm
of Broken Bay that trends away to the south, and is eight miles long
and one broad. We arrived about 11 A.M. (ten miles from Manly),
and found the steamer Pelican waiting for us with breakfast spread
on the deck, for which we were now more than ready. After getting
under way we steamed down this inlet of the sea ; and came out on
to and crossed Broken Bay. This is one of the many bays up
the coast of New South Wales, and is eighteen miles north of Port
Jackson. The bold headland of Barranjuey with its lighthouse
rears itself on the right ; beyond that we can see plainly enough
where the opening to seaward is, but which is the mouth of the
Hawkesbury River it is difficult to tell, for the bay is surrounded
by high hills of down and wood, that are so " broken " that the
waters seem to lead oflF round and up into them at every point of
the compass. The vessel makes for one of these openings, and under
shores rising several hundred feet we pass on into another clear
expanse of water ; the exit from this is in turn concealed from view
by fresh hills and more forest, till in one corner we suddenly swing
round into another as beautiful a lake; and so it goes on, lake
lying beyond lake, wooded hill rising beyond wooded hill, and bays
leading oflF into the interior on every side. The native name for the
river is Deerubbun ; its total length is 330 miles. It is a continua-
tion of the Nepean River, the same we crossed higher up in its course
when we went to the Blue Mountains: it has also received the waters
we saw falling over Govett's Leap, for the Grose River, flowing from
the valley of the same name, carries them through a remarkable cleft
near Richmond into the Nepean, and the Nepean into this Hawkes-
bury. We sit or stand about on the bridge amidships and look
out and round on the ever-changing and yet constant loveliness of
the river, which every now and then narrows between islands that
seem to close in all passage ahead. One of us took the wheel
and steered (as the helmsman bid) now east, now west, now south,
now north. Reach after reach (the staff-commander, chart on
lap, perched on the paddle-box, points them out, Mangora Creek,

602 ON BOARD H.M.S. INCONSTANT. 1881.

Berowa Creek, and Mullet Creek) opena out, while ever and again
an arm of the river winds oflf into the unknown on the right and
on the left hand. There are very few houses or signs of any habi-
tation visible ; stacks of cut wood waiting for transport, here and
there a ferry boat, or empty punt drawn in among the reeds, alone
give signs that human beings have been here before us. Further
on we come upon a few small homesteads and settlers' gardens on
the banks : these, we hear, suffer much from the river floods which,
after heavy rains, sometimes rise as much as eighty feet : as the
gorges through which the river passes are very narrow their
accumulation and downpour is very rapid.

The few settlers we saw ate the descendants of the earliest free
colonists of New South Wales. They came here in 1821 and were
mostly Scotchmen ; they were the first free immigrants that came
to Australia, and lived by growing maize, potatoes and fruit. The
place is the same now as it was sixty years ago. The stream of immi-
grants and enterprise has gone another way : the greater part of
the banks are not approached by any road, and are accessible only
by water. Small luggers from Sydney ply up and down the stream
taking the produce of the settlers to market, and bringing them
back flour and tea in return : in some places what was once
cultivated seems to have been allowed to relapse into its wild state.

It was past three in the afternoon when we reached Wiseman's
Ferry, fifty miles up the river, a village on a flat and partially cleared
promontory. This is said to be about the limit up to which the salt
water tide from the sea flows. While we made fast for a few minutes
alongside the bank, the public schoolmaster and some other of
the inhabitants of the village came on board to say how heartily
glad they were to welcome us to their out-of-the-way spot ; we
heard the school children, marshalled on the green, singing the
National Anthem, and their elders cheering lustily as we moved
away. The church (old and in ruins), the school, and a few farm-
houses are all the township. The electric telegraph wire from Sydney
to Maitland is here carried across the river 1,000 feet above the
water from bank to bank; and by this ferry the overland traffic
between these two towns is now carried : and it is here that the rail-
way, now in course of construction, that will knit Sydney up with
Newcastle, and thus with Brisbane and Queensland, will run. A
little further on the River Macdonald, coming from the north, joins
the Hawkesbury, which up to this point from the seals the bound-
ary between the counties of Northumberland and Cumberland, and

1881. WE REJOIN THE BACCHANTE, 603

hitherto has borne us chiefly northwards from Broken Bay ; from
Wiseman's Ferry upward however the river trends to the south, and
forms the western boundary of Cumberland. After this dusk soon
came on, and by the time we had had dinner on deck and had counted
the leaves, great and small, of the tufts of two pine-apples, we found
ourselves at Sackville Beach, where we landed. It was now nearly
dark, as we drove in two waggonettes five miles through the woods
and bush to Windsor, which is forty-two miles from Wiseman's
Ferry (river and road). There we got into a special train at
8.30 P.M., which had been kindly ordered for us by Mr. V. Read, the
traffic manager; this rattled us back over the thirty-four miles
from Windsor to Sydney, by Paramatta, where the Windsor branch
line joins the Blue Mountains and Bathurst line. We arrived
at Redfem station at 9.35, and went with Lord Charles Scott
straight to Government House, where we once more slept, after a
long and (thanks to Mr. Jeanneret) a very enjoyable day.

Augtcst 2nd. — Rejoined the Bacchante to-day. We have been very
happy and jolly on board the Inconstant, but are glad to be back once
more in our old quarters, and among our own shipmates. At noon
to-day there was the State ceremony of laying the foundation stone
of the pedestal upon which is to be placed Mr. Marshall Wood's
statue of the Queen, now in the Exhibition building. This is to
stand in front of St. James's Church at the top of Macquarie
Street, at right angles to the statue of the Prince Consort, and
about fifty yards on his left hand side, at the end of Hyde Park.
This is the most ancient-looking site in Sydney ; the red brick,
long-windowed oblong church with its spire (the first substantial
place of worship erected in the city — it was built in 1805 as a
court-house, but changed into a church and the spire added after-
wards), with the old house on the right-hand side on which are
sculptured the king's monogram " G. R," and the old red brick
buildings opposite — which served in the earlier days as the convict
barracks — carry us back without any great stretch of imagination
to the Georgian times, when all the three-cornered hat notables
were here walking about. January 26th, "anniversary day," 1888
(seven years hence), will be the centenary of the founding of New
South Wales : as we stood in this square to-day and our thoughts
went back into the past, they also went forward into the future,
and we wondered whether the Australasian States would be one
and indivisible by that date, knit together by their railways and
federated too with Great Britain, and if either of us would be

604 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

here to see. To-day is a public holiday, and Sir John Robertson
as Minister for Education, has arranged that as many schools and
children as possible should be present : they have come up with free
passes and special trains on the railways from all the neighbour-
hood : along the southern line from as far as Campbelltown, on the
western line from Penrith and Richmond ; all the suburban schools,
from Ryde to Manly Beach and Watson's Bay are also here.
The tram-cars between 10 and 11 A.M, throughout the city are also
reserved by the Government for their use. The consequence was
that at least as many as 20,000 children were drawn up chiefly in
the square at the end of Hyde Park, where refreshments were given
them when the whole thing was over. We started from Govern-
ment House, with the Governor in his state coach, and drove down
Bridge Street, turned to the left up Pitt Street, and then proceeded
by King Street to the front of St. James's Church. The streets were
all decorated with flags and banners and crammed with people,
whose cheering as we passed along was one vigorous and continuous
roar; there were at least 70,000 people on the line of procession;
the largest crowd, we hear, that has ever assembled in Sydney.
The volunteers, the fire and naval brigades, and detachments of
men from all the Queen s ships in the harbour took part in the
procession, which was further enlivened by several bands of music
marching at regular intervals, and playing lively airs. There were
tiers of seats round the stone, and here Sir Henry Parkes, Sir John
Robertson, and the other ministers and most of the legislative
assembly were waiting : the speeches were short, there was a good
deal of singing and band playing. Eddy laid the stone with a
silver trowel and ivory mallet given him to-day. He said that
" we were both delighted to witness so large a concourse of our
fellow- subjects, evincing such loyalty towards the throne and person
of the Queen, in this the mother city and parent colony of
Australia." That ** when we returned to England we should carry
back with us a lively remembrance of this day's spectacle ; and we
trusted that the rising generation, of whom we had the pleasure of
beholding several thousands to-day, would ever cherish the same
warmth of attachment towards the old country as we for our parts
would never cease to entertain towards Australia, as we watched
her development, welfare, and advance." We afterwards drove back
to the House down Macquarie Street, past the Mint — (Sydney and
Melbourne coined all the sovereigns that were put into circulation in
Great Britain and Ireland in 1881, 1882, and 1883)— the Parliament

1881. NEW SOUTH WALES. 605

House and the old Sydney Infirmary. It was a grand sight and
all went oflF well. When many of the children of the colony who
to-day marched past have grown to manhood, Australia will pro-
bably contain more inhabitants than the United Kingdom did when
the Queen began to reign forty-four years ago.

[The colony of New South Wales is fourth in size of the
Australian colonies. Although it is equal in extent to the United
Kingdom and France, or to Germany and Italy combined, it is about
half the size of Queensland, and not much more than a third of
the size of South Australia and Western Australia. In regard to
population, however, it stands second. Victoria, which has little
more than one-fourth of the area of New South Wales, has a popu-
lation of nearly one million, while that of New South Wales is
only 950,000. The population doubles itself every eleven years.
It is increasing now at the rate of 50,000 a year; and that
of Victoria at the rate of 25,000 a year; so that in 1888 the
population of the two colonies will probably be equal. While
there were at the last census 291 persons to every square mile
of the United Kingdom, there were in New South Wales only two
and a-half. Only a small portion, therefore, of the soil of New
South Wales has been settled. The area under tillage in New
South Wales is small, being little more than three-quarters of a
million acres, against 2,250,000 in Victoria ; but New South Wales
possesses more sheep than any other colony (35,000,000). Queens-
land comes next with 11,500,000. Its revenue in 1885 was
estimated at 8,695,929/., or nearly double what it was five years
ago ; but of this amount less than 30 per cent, was raised by taxa-
tion, the rest came from investments of various sources — such as
railways, sales of land, and the like. The expenditure amounted
to 8,048,000/. A property tax of one penny in the pound on all
property in excess of 300/. is estimated to yield 750,000/. a year.
In 1884 the British income-tax at fivepence in the pound
produced 8,068,340/.]

August 3rd. — General leave was given to one watch for twenty-
four hours ; the Admiral made signal that "on leaving, squadron will
proceed to Fiji and Yokohama. New Zealand will not be visited."
We shall start as soon as the Admiral's health permits, but under
these new arrangements Pekin and the north of China will have
to be given up, as it is now impossible we should arrive there by the
beginning of October : this is the one month that we have always kept
as a standby for Pekin. This afternoon there was a ten-oared cutter

606 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

race between the boys of the Cari/sfort and Cleopatra, won by those of
the former. In the evening about seventy officers from the squadron
started by special train at 7 p.m. for Wellington, 248 miles from
Sydney, where to-morrow there is to be a grand kangaroo drive.
They arrived at 6 A.M. after travelling through the night. After
breakfast they went to Nanima and then three miles further on.
We heard when they returned on the 5th that they had much
enjoyed themselves with the kangaroos ; there was plenty of drink
and music, and no end of substantial fare.

August 5th, — We are trying to make arrangements to go to
Newcastle and tlie northern part of the colony. We should have
to go by steamer from Sydney to Newcastle — seventy-five miles — as
the through line is not yet open, though round Newcastle itself, the
centre of the Northumberland and Durham coal district, there are
numerous railway lines. Along one of these we hoped to have gone
180 miles north to Tamworth, by Maitland and Singleton and over
the Liverpool range of downs, and through some of the richest soil
for wheat, vines and cotton, in the colony. It is often eighteen feet
deep, and will simply bear any amount. There are also some extra-
ordinary tin mines there ; ten years ago they had not been worked
at all, and already the yield from the Australian tin mines is more
than half that from all the other tin mines in the world. The
coal-producing area of the colony is at least 24,000 square miles
(the coal-fields of Great Britain cover an area of 4,000 miles; ;
true to its name, New South Wales is the most extensive coal-
field in the southern hemisphere. Geologically the beds are older
than any that have yet been worked in Europe. Immense seams
are found close to abundance of iron, limestone, and fire-clay.
Already over a million tons are exported to the other colonies,
India, San Francisco, and the Pacific. The coal lies near the
surface, and in many places crops out on the face of the hills, so
that it can be cheaply worked by driving tunnels. There were
fifty-three mines open in 1884, employing 6,227 men; the quantity
raised in that year was nearly 3,000,000 tons, valued at 1,500,000/.
The output in Great Britain from 3,000 collieries raised by 520,632
hands is 160,000,000 tons a year, valued at 43,000,000/. ; it would
therefore be difficult to over-estimate the proportions to which the
New South Wales coal trade may develop. Between 1870 and 1883
the total increase in the British coal production was upwards of
53,000,000 tons — an increase nearly equal to three times the present
production of France, fully equalling the present annual production

1881. GOAL. RANDWICK. NORTH SHORE. 607

of Qermany, thirteen times the annual production of Russia, and
about eight times the production of Austria. Enormous, however,
as this increase is, it has been exceeded by that which has within
the same period taken place in the United States. In the latter
country the quantity of coal produced in 1870 was 32,750,000
tons ; and in 1882, 87,500,000 tons, an increase of about 55,000,000
tons, or over 170 per cent. There is, however, this remarkable
difference between the two countries, that while the British pro-
duction of coal has been largely stimulated by the growth of our
export of that commodity — which increased by about 12,000,000
tons between 1870 and 1884 — that of the United States has
practically been caused altogether by home consumption, their
total exports of coal never having exceeded about 1,000,000 tons,
or less than a twenty-third part of the coal exports of the
United Kingdom.

This afternoon we went with Lady Augustus to the Destitute
Children's Home, out at Randwick, of which Prince Alfred laid the
foundation stone. We saw 600 poor little boys and girls, who had
a holiday that day. They all looked clean and tolerably healthy,
but some bore marks of the afBiction that comes of their parents'
sins. "Iste grex quid commeruit?" (1 Chron. xxi. 17). It was
founded in 1852; and is supported by the State as well as by
subscriptions. The average number is 800 ; they are all either
deserted by parents — waifs and strays found by the police — or if
not abandoned by their parents, at any rate received from them
as not competent to have charge of them, sometimes on the ap-
plication of one of the pai*ents themselves. They are afterwards
apprenticed out to subscribers. The boarding-out system is here
esteemed as by far the cheapest and best, since it gives to the
children the natural conditions of home life. We went over their
dormitories and schoolrooms, and saw them all drawn up with
banners, and singing in the open playground at the back. Canon
Stephen, the chairman, the B.C. Dean Sheridan, and other members
of the committee, were there.

Aug^Lst 6th. — At 10.30 A.M. crossed over to North Shore and
laid the foundation stone of the new nave of St. Thomas's Church.
It was quite a chance that Sydney was built on the southern rather
than the northern shore of Port Jackson : it was a small stream of
water that was found flowing into Sydney Cove that attracted the
flrst colonists to establish themselves on that side rather than on
this. No doubt soon both will be united, and St. Leonard's, where

608 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

we are to-day, will be to Sydney what Brooklyn is to New York ;
a bridge across the harbour where the steam ferry now runs from
Dawes Point to Blue Point (it is only 712 yards across) would
join them. It is just forty years ago since the old Church of St.
Thomas was opened. The day was beautifully fine, and there were
between 2,000 and 3,000 people turned out, with fire brigades,
bands, &c. The Bishop of Goulbum, the Dean of Sydney, and the
Rev. Mr. Childe (the incumbent), with the choir in surplices, per-
formed a short service in the open air under the trees and sang a
couple of hymns, one before and one after the stone was laid.
There was a collection on the new-laid stone of about lOOZ. : the
trowel and mallet of ivory and carved wood and silver were very
pretty. We afterwards went into the old church and saw the
Goodenough window. When the new nave is completed according
to plan, it will contain 1,000 people, and when the tower and spire
(160 feet high) are finished, it will be a very fine church. In the
afternoon we saw Mr. Fairey in his JRob Boy canoe.^ A number of
school children filling two steamers came oflf to the squadron, and
serenaded each ship. In the evening we went to the amateur
theatricals given at the School of Arts in aid of the Goodenough
Royal Naval House. We heartily hope that a suitable building on
a good site with increased accommodation will soon be forthcoming
as a proper Club House and Home for the bluejackets, as Sydney
is the headquarters of the Australian naval station, and there is
generally some Queen's ship lying here.

^ She was built in 1 877 by Messrs. Searle and Co. at Lambeth, under the supervision

Rob Roy Macgregor ; is twelve feet long, of twenty-eight-inch beam, and twelve

inches in depth. She is fitted with lockers for provisions and charts, and with india-

of Rob Roy Macgregor ; is twelve feet long, of twenty-eight-inch beam, and twelve
inches in depth. She is fitted with lockers for provisions and charts, and with india-
rubber air-chambers, which make her a life-boat. The canoe is built of English oak.

mahogany, and cedar, is decked fore and aft, and carries a light mast and lugsail.
The person sailing her sits on the flooring, and by means of an ingenious tiller
arrangement steers with his foot. The little vessel sails, under favourable circum-
stances, at the rate of seven or eight knots an hour, and Mr. Fairey uses a single-
bladed paddle to i)ropel her, working it on one side only, and using the rudder to
keep her on a straight course. A waterproof cabin, constructed to stretch on light
posts when the boat is used as a sleeping-place, ia part of her equipment, and also a
jlob Hoy cuisine, which boils water in the short space of three and a half minutes.
The nett weight of this little vessel, sails and fittings, is about eiehty pounds. In
February last she made her first voya«:e, which was round the iron-bound north and
east coasts of Tasmania, a distance of 400 miles. On the voyage Mr. Fairey called

at various places, holding Mission services, and distributing books, &c. He was the

fuest of an isolated family on Foresters Peninsula during three days while it was
lowing too hard for his little craft, and finally he arrived at Hobart, after

having experienced all kinds of weather during the voyage. Mr. Fairey intends, if
circumstances permit, to make a Missionary voyage in this little boat down the
Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers. She was designed as an '* ocean canoe," and was
exported by him for special Mission work on the coasts and rivers of Australia. The
log of the canoe voyage in the open sea is published in the Boy's Own Paper by the
Religious Tract Society.

1881. VISIT TO BOTANY BAY. 609

Av^. 7th. — Usual service on the main deck, after which
Admii-al made signal, " I intend to sail on Wednesday." At the
service after evening quarters the Rev. Mr. Shearston, Church
of England Seamen's missionary, gave us a short extempore
sermon.

Aug. 8/A.— =-In the forenoon at school with Mr. Lawless again. In
the afternoon some boat-racing took place, beginning with the first
and second cutters of the Cleopatra, in which the former won by about
a length ; next we raced our new ten- oared cutter, built by Looke,
of Balmain, in place of the one we lost off Cape Leuwin (p. 439),
against the Wolverine's^ which is also Sydney-built. Before the
race the Wolverine's were ready to give any odds on their own
boat, and backed her heavily, and as ours was a ** squadron " boat
against one " on the station," there was a good deal of excitement
amongst the bluejackets over the race. The course was three and
a half miles. We beat them easily, and our crew on returning
was much cheered by the ships of the detached squadron. The
Cleopatra's who had from the first backed our boat, manned a
cutter and towed the conquerors home alongside their " chummy
ship."

Atig. 9th. — At noon to-day we landed, and with several other
officers drove over to Botany Bay, It is a five miles' drive to
the south of the city, through the suburbs of Chippendale and
Waterloo. Mr. Jeanneret took several of us on his private omnibus.
We had pointed out to us the waterworks for the city in Lachlan
swamp four and a half miles outside; this is 110 feet above sea-
level, and beneath the soil is an immense bed of drift sand, of over
3,000 acres extent, in a basin. The greater part of the water used
in the city is raised hence by steam power and forced in pipes to
the reservoirs for the higher parts of the city. The lower parts of
Sydney are supplied by a tunnel through which the water runs by
gravitation from this point ; 30,000,000 gallons weekly are pumped
up thus, and another 10,000,000 and a half gallons find their way
down the tunnel. In addition to these the Nepean waterworks are
now in course of construction on the other side of the city, and will
furnish an inexhaustible supply of water. There is a sewage farm
at Botany.

We reached Bo-Bong pier about 1 P.M., and there the Hon.
Thomas Holt met us with several members of the Upper and
Lower Houses, and we went at once on board the steamer he had
chartered to cross the bay (the waters of which cover an expanse

VOL. I. R R

610 CRUISE OF H.M.a BACCHANTE. 1881.

of over twenty square miles) to the southern shore, where about two
miles inside the Heads Captain Cook, the "Columbus of the south,"
landed from one of the boats of the Endeavour, and first unfurled
the British flag in Australia, April 28th, 1770. The southern
head he named Sutherland Point, after a north-countiy seaman of
his ship's company who died while the Undeavour was at anchor in
the bay, and was the first European whose bones were laid to rest
in Australian soil. Away on the north shore under Cape Banks is
the column erected by the Australians to the memory of La Perouse,
who sailed in here with the Astrolabe and Broiissole the day after
Cook arrived. He had intended to have claimed Australia for the
French, but was unfortunate in arriving a day too late. When he
set sail hence he was never more heard of, but perished on the
coral reefs in the Pacific.

We left the pier at 1.30 P.M. in the steamer Swansea. The
shallow waters of the bay to-day were calm and of a cobalt blue ;
but on the left where they deepened seaward of an olive hue, as far
as the white fringe of the foam-crested breakers that were roUing
in between the headlands. Away on the west a low line of brown
haze marked where Sydney lay, and overhead a few thin fleecy
clouds flecked the blue of the otherwise clear sky. When we drew
near Point Sutherland we stopped and got into the Custom House
boats, and from them we landed at the very rocks upon which
Captain Cook describes himself in his Journal as having first set
foot, Saturday, April 28th, 1770. Mr. Holt had given us copies
of Cook's chart and extracts from his Journal written during the
stay of the JEndeavour in the bay, and so we were able to realise
the scene completely, " when early in the afternoon he anchored
under the south shore, about two miles within the entrance, in
six fathoms of water." The whole aspect of the place to-day is
just the same as it was a century ago. Beyond the rocks on to
which we stepped from the boats lies the sandy beach where
Cook's "men hauled up their boats, and began to dress their dinner;
after which they searched for fresh water, but found none." The
next day, Sunday, April 29th, Cook in the morning sent a party of
men to that part of the shore where he first landed, " with orders to
dig holes in the sand where the water might gather, but going
ashore himself soon afterwards he found, upon a more diligent
search, a small stream a little to the east of the place where the
ship was anchored." The small stream, and it is but a little
one, much choked with reeds, has been running undisturbed

1881. BOTANY BAY. 611

from that day to this. We walked to it, and saw where Cook's
water-casks were filled. " It was on Tuesday," he wrote, " May
1st, that the body of Sutherland, one of our seamen who died
the evening before, was buried near the watering-place, and
from this incident I call the south point of this bay Suther-
land Point." "This day Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Solander (the
Swedish naturalist), and myself, resolved to make an excursion
into the country. We found the soil to be either swamp
or light sand, juid the face of the country finely diversified
by wood and lawn. The trees are tall and straight, without
underwood, standing at such a distance from each other that the
whole country (at least where the swamps do not render it in-
capable of cultivation) might be cultivated without cutting down
one of them ; between the trees the ground is covered with grass, of
which there is a great abundance." Two days after they '* went
further up the country for some distance, and found the face of it
nearly the same as that which has already been described, but the
soil was much richer; for instead of sand I found a deep black
mould, which I thought very fit for the production of grain of any
kind. We found also interspersed some of the finest meadows in
the world. Some places, however, were rocky, but these were
comparatively few. The stone is sandy, and might be used with
advantage for building. The next day I went myself with a party
over to the north shore and made an excursion a few miles into the
country [that is in the direction of Sydney, from which we have come
this morning]. We found this place without wood, and somewhat
resembling our moors in England ; the surface of the ground, how-
ever, was covered with a thin brush of plants about as high as the
knees." " Saturday, May 5 th. The great quantity of plants which
Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander collected induced me to give it the name
of Botany Bay. During my stay in this harbour I caused the
English colours to be displayed on shore every day, and the ship s
name and the date of the year to be inscribed upon one of the trees
near the landing-place. At daybreak, on Sunday, May 6th, we set
sail from Botany Bay with a light breeze at north-west, which soon
after coming to the southward, we steered along the shore north-
north-east, and at noon our latitude by observation was So** 50'
south. At the time we were two or three miles distant from the
land, and abreast of a bay or harbour in the which there appeared
to be a good anchorage, and which I called Port Jackson " (after
his friend and patron at the Admiralty). Beading Cook's words

R R 2

613 CRUISE OF UMS, BACCHANTE, 1881

on the spot to-day we see that his description of the place, like
that of all others which he visited, is most accurate, down to the
smallest detail. The only two things which are here now but were
not here then are a brass plate, with an inscription, to commemorate
Cook's landing, (it was fixed fifty years ago by the Royal Society
on the face of the rock a little to the east of the landing-place as the
nearest available spot,) and the sandstone obelisk with its iron
rails, that Mr. Holt erected on the spot in 1870. Near this we
planted four trees, one of which was the Araucaria Cookii, which
Cook discovered in New Caledonia. Lunch meanwhile had been
spread upon the turf. A hungry dog ran off with a goose, but we
chevied him up the slope and made him drop his prey. After
we had drunk the health of the Queen, and Prince and Princess
of Wales, we had to start home. Before this, however, we drank
Mr. Holt's health, and thanked him warmly for his hospitality. We
recrossed the bay in Mr. Jeanneret's steamer, the Pacific, to Bo-Bong
pier, and then we drove back to Sydney.

Aug, 10th. — A beautiful day with scarcely a breath of wind.
Preparing for sea all the forenoon. At noon the Governor and
Lady Augustus Loftus and Miss Kennedy came on board to say
" good-bye,'' as also did the mayor and corporation and several other
people, amongst whom was Mr. Jeanneret with flowers and presents ;
our cabins are full of flowers, some of them exceedingly pretty.
Several cases of oranges had been sent on board from Paramatta
for the ship's company, which, although it is midwinter, are ripe and
perfectly sweet. These have pips on the outside, at the crown, just
like the " navel oranges " from Brazil — in fact it is from there
that they were introduced here. One of the first shiploads of con-
victs that left England for New South Wales touched at Bahia on
its way out round the Cape ; and the old chaplain on board, Mr.
Johnstone, carefully saved the pips of his oranges and brought
them on with him to the new land to which he was going, and in
which he had learnt, from Captain Cook's description of the shores
of Botany Bay, that every sort of flower and shrub flourished
luxuriantly. The old man, who had many a trouble to contend
with on first arrival here, was not disappointed of this one, at all
events, of his hopes, for the orange pips grew and throve, and were
the progenitors of the ample orangeries that overshadow for miles
the hill-sides of Paramatta, where from one good tree a hundred
dozen oranges on an average are produced. At 4.30 P.M. the ships
of the squadron (after a stay of twenty-seven days off the most

1881.

NEW SOUTH WALES TO QUEENSLAND.
SYDNEY TO BRISBANE.

613

Date.

From Previous Noom.

At Noon.

Tempkraturk. 1

Distance.

Wind.

Lat

Long.

Sea. Air. |

Course.

SaU.

Steam.

Xoon.

6 P.M. 1 Noon.

6 P.M.

Aug.

...

Variable 1

N. 66 E.

N.E. to
N.W.I ^^

33 13

152-58

N. 48 E.

104

...

N.W. 1.2,

W. by S. to

W. 5-7

32-3

154-29

N. 3W.

158

...

W. 57,
S.W.4-6-3

29-25

154-19

US.

N. 22 W.

S.W. 2-3,
S.E. 1-2,
S.W. 2

28 34

153-56

N. 15 W.

...

S.E. 1-2,
N.E. to E.
byS. 1-2

27-65

153-44

16
Tc

»tal

E. by N. to
E.N.E. 2-4

27-3

153-17

413

158

.... 53

1 mil

38.

614 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

beautiful city in the Queen's dominions, where it stands outstretched
beside the green sea-water with its flying violet shadows) weighed
in succession and proceeded out of Port Jackson in single column
in line ahead, with the Wolverine in company. She is leading
the lee line, and we are astern of her. Macquarie Point, to which
we are lying closest in of any of the squadron, is one black mass of
people, and the waters of the harbour are covered with all sorts of
craft, small and large, under oars and under sail, bringing Sydney and
up-country folk who are desirous of seeing the last of the Admiral
and detached squadron. Many of the steamers accompany the ships
right down to the Heads, and one or two even come outside into
the swell which is rolling in, before they turn and leave us. Each
steamer with its load of enthusiastic colonists as they pass the six
ships of the squadron cheered and waved adieu ; while all along
the shores thousands of others could be seen who thus testified
their goodwill to the representatives of Great Britain and their
Queen.

Av^. 1 \th. — At 7.30 A.M. made plain sail on the port tack, and
altered course to north-east. At 8.20 iuM. up screw. At 8.30 A.M.
Wolverine parted company from the squadron and proceeded to
New Guinea. It is a beautiful day, and the luxury of sailing
along quietly once more free from all the distractions of the shore
is very great : besides which the BdccharUe is now the clipper of the
squadron instead of being the " haystack " ; owing to her having
been so lately docked she has a cleaner bottom than any of them.
We find we can give even the flagship sail : their bottoms must be
very foul. Cape Moreton and Brisbane were 372 miles distant at
noon.

Aug. 12^A. — A good deal more wind to-day, and we went along
eight knots the greater part of it. At 9.30 A.M. in first reefs of
fore and main topsails and second reef of mizen topsail, until after
evening quarters, when we shook them out. We split the fore and
main top-gallant sails this morning. The squalls have had much
rain in them.

Aiig, 13<A. — Not very much wind, the sea has all gone down :
we are making from five to six knots all day. After evening
quarters a lot of the fellows played at lawn tennis with a rope
across the deck for a net ; it did very welL The boxes of oranges
turn out most excellent — there are three boxes to every mess of
the bluejackets on the lower deck; of the three in our cabin we
sent one to the men's sick bay and one to the gun-room, and when

1881. NEW SOUTH WALES TO QUEENSLAND. 615

this last was gone sent the other after it. At 5.20 P.M. sighted
Mount Warning. Nearly a flat calm at night.

Aug, \^th. — Soon after midnight there was a shift of wind from
the south-east to the south-west, and we braced forward on the port
tack, and at 6 A.M. jdtered course to close the flagship, and observed
land on the port beam. Service as usual on the main deck;
scarcely any wind, a beautiful day, but we shall not be in by
to-morrow. The young kangaroo which was given us at Sydney is
very tame, and comes out in the dinner-hour and afibrds great
fun as it goes springing along up and down the deck ; he is very
well and we hope he will live. There is a huge shark following
us alongside to-day. After quarters and evening service the wind
went round to the east-south-east, and we are now braced forward
on the starboard tack.

Aug. \bth, — The flagship, Tourmaline and Carysfort spread for
target practice under steam ; the Bacchante^ with the Cleopatra, is
standing on her course under sail, as we both "expended our
quarter's ammunition" at Albany. The wind is very light, and in
the evening it is a dead calm. Aiter quarters we exercised at
shifting topsails, which was done in shorter time than we have ever
done it before ; the commander was pleased with the men. Wo
got down the screw in the first watch, and at 11.30 P.M. proceeded
under steam to close the flagship. It is getting nice and warm
again ; the thermometer is 69°.

Aitg. 16th, — Half an hour after midnight observed Cape Moreton
light, north -north-west, and at 5.30 A.M. formed single column in line
ahead, and entered Moreton Bay under steam and sail, until at 11
A.M. squadron furled sails and squared yards. It is bright and sunny
and we have a good look at the curious conical hills that rise like
" glass houses " as we go slowly up the intricate and narrow passage
that leads to the anchorage, where we arrived at 4 P.M The
steamer Kate, with Major Moore, A.D.C., and Sir Arthur Palmer,
the colonial secretary, on board, had come down from Brisbane, and
at 6 P.M. the Admiral with his flag-lieutenant and secretary, and
Drs. Wilson and Lynch, and the captains of the other four ships,
went on board her, where we joined them to go up to Government
House. Brisbane is about twenty miles up, and we arrived there
about 8 P.M. There were many extemporary fireworks and bonfires
on each side of the river bank all the way up : and the pier in the
Botanic Gardens where we landed was very prettily decorated with
Chinese lanterns, that were also hanging about on all the trees

616

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1881

through which we drove up to the house. A guard of honour of
the 1st Queenslanders was waiting on the pier. We had dinner
at nine, to which Sir Thomas McEwraith (the Prime Minister) and
Sir Arthur Palmer (the Colonial Secretary) came. The Governor
and Miss Kennedy are exceedingly kind and have put themselves
out so as to take us all in under their roof.

IN MORETON BAY, QUEENSLAND.

Date.

18
19

Wind.

Tekpekatubk.

Sea.

Air.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.

6 p.m.

66
68
66

Variable 1-2

Calm

64
64
66

64
66
66

71
65
68

Aug. 17 th, — Large house-party at breakfast, where the China-
men gliding about in their white loose dresses and long pigtails,
cleanly, nimble, and silent, seemed to get through twice the work
that ordinary European men-servants accomplish. Then mounted
on horseback, and rode all through Brisbane. After passing the
noble pile of the Parliament House on the left-hand side of the
road just outside Government House grounds, we went along
George and Queen Streets out towards the Hamilton, and then
turned up to the left on to the higher ground near EldernelL
There were crowds of people in the streets who cheered vigorously.
We rode up through Sir Arthur Palmer s grounds on to the race-
course, and returned to town by Spring Hill. We had some very
pretty views over Brisbane and the beautiful scenery surrounding
it. We came back in front of the hospital, in the garden of which
many of the invalids had managed to get out for the morning.
Most of the houses here are surrounded with deep verandahs and
stand in their own separate gardens, and many of them are built
of wood.

In the afternoon the Governor held his open-air reception, in-
stead of on Saturday as usual ; and there was a large garden party,
to which about four hundred people came. We had pleasant
chats with several to whom we were introduced, Mr. Gregoiy, the
explorer, was one, who with his brothers has been right across

1881. AT BRISBANE. 617

Australia. Two of the counties in the interior of the colony are
named after them "Gregory North" and ''Gregory South." They
told us that unexplored Australia still contains prizes for enter-
prising travellers. The great central-desert theory, and many
other myths, have long been exploded, but an immense area of
country remains practically untrodden. Mr. Christie Palmerston, a
Government surveyor, has just opened up the table-lands between
Herberton and the Queensland coast. He reports that this highly
favoured region possesses a flora of incredible luxuriance, broad
sheets of water flowing over high basaltic precipices, and the richest
soil in Australia. Another gallant band of explorers, under Mr.
Alexander Forrest, have lately been pushing up some of the
rivers in the northern territory. The Fitzroy river was found to
be navigable for 100 miles inland, and to run through rich country
ranged over by thousands of emus and kangaroos. The Qlenelg,
another river, flows from a table-land 2,000 feet high ; after crossing
this and going eastward they came upon millions of acres of fertile,
well-grassed country, the greater portion in undulating flats, inter-
sected with numerous large rivers, all running north and north-west.
They saw no big game, but flocks of wild turkeys, and the rivers were
covered with duck and fowl. These rivers deposit large tracts of
the finest alluvial soil, much of it in the south of Queensland fit
for yielding all the fruits and cereals grown in temperate climates,
and that in the centre and the north for most tropical products.
Queensland is encouraging settlement of the interior, by making
the land laws as liberal as any land laws can be, and by opening
up railway communication between the coast and the interior.
The Government are just about to make a contract for a trans^
continental line to run from Brisbane right across to Port Darwin
in the Gulf of Carpentaria ; this line, over a thousand miles long,
running through some of the finest land in the world, capable of
supporting millions of human beings, is to be constructed in seven
and a-half years on the land grant system, 10,000 acres being
allotted to the company for every mile of railway laid down. (Sir
Thomas Mcllwraith was afterwards defeated on this project, for
the present, but the line will be made ultimately.)

In the course of the afternoon we had some capital games at
lawn tennis. We are very sorry to hear of the death to-day of
Dr. Quinn, the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Queensland. He
seems to have been much respected by all here. He was brother
to the Bishop of Bathurst in New South Wales. We had our first

618 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

taste of beche-de-mer (or trepang) soup at dinner to-night. These
little sea-slugs, from two and a-half to six inches long, are found
on the coral-reefs of the Pacific. The finest are brown, and are
worth 30/. a ton ; the second best are black, then come the red,
and the poorest sort are the white, which are worth 12/. a ton.
In China the best fetch 100/. a ton. They are imported in dry
flakes just like turtle is in England.

Aug. ISth. — To-day has been proclaimed a public holiday in
Brisbane ; all the public offices and most of the warehouses and
shops are closed, and a great many people have gone down to
Moretpn Bay to see the ships of the squadron. Six excursion
steamers have left all well-loaded. They ran down each of the
days of our stay here, and saw the men at target and torpedo
practice, and their usual drills. All the ships were thrown open to
them. Since the squadron has been in Australia 108 men have run
out of the 1,700 it contains. The Inconstant lost forty-six men at
Melbourne, sixteen at Sydney, and three at Brisbane, total sixty-
five ; the Tourmaline fifteen at Melbourne and five at Sydney, total
twenty ; the Cleopatra six at Melbourne, and nine at Sydney, total
fifteen ; the Garysfort seven at Melbourne, and the Bacchante one
only at Sydney. Considering the many inducements that are open
in the colonies to the bluejacket, for bettering himself, and the
readiness with which he can get an engagement up country on ac-
count of his handiness and general usefulness, this was perhaps no
more than we might have expected ; the common labourer without
any skill at all is able to earn 8s. a day and to enjoy his personal
liberty. But that the Bacchante should have lost but one is a
matter at any rate to be proud of, and is perhaps owing to our
having shipped at Melbourne a time-expired man, whom, although
he thought he was going to do wonders for himself in Australia, we
found there only too glad to re-engage and return to England, and
the accounts he gave to his shipmates of his own shiftless ex-
periences may at any rate have strengthened them in the resolve
to prefer present duty to vague hopes.

After breakfast there were three addresses read to us ; one by the
Upper and one by the Lower House of the Queensland Parliament,
and another by the Mayor (Mr. Sinclair) and Aldermen of Brisbane.
Sir Joshua Bell (the President of the Upper House) read the first ;
the Hon. H. E. King (the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly)
the second. Most of the members of each House were present.
After, as representatives of the people of Queensland welcoming us

1881. RIDE TO ONE TREE HILL. 619

*' on this our first visit to the youngest of the Australian colonies,
they regretted that the short stay of the squadron in these waters
rendered it impossible for us to form an adequate idea of the
resources of the colony ; but brief as our visit is, they hoped it
would create in our minds an interest in the future of Queensland ;
and that if we came again we should find that the colony had
attained a large measure of the importance which was her inevit-
able destiny." We thanked them for their cordial words of greeting
and good wishes. " Our present is, it is true, but a passing visit.
But we assuredly hope, as does our father the Prince of Wales, that
opportunities may hereafter occur both for himself and for us again
to come amongst you, and to further witness the development
of this very extensive and promising portion of the Queen's
dominions." ^

After they had gone we had a game of lawn t-ennis, and at 1 P.M.
were all photographed in a group in the garden, with the Governor
and the Admiral. At 3 p.m. we went out riding into the country.
One of the horses we rode had once been a terrible buck-jumper,
but was to-day beautifully quiet and went as jolly as possible. All
the captains of the squadron had been lunching with Sir Thomas
Mcllwraith, so we went first to his house and up through his
grounds to One Tree Hill. From the summit there was a very ex-
tensive outlook over'Brisbane and its suburbs down below. On one
side was the town stretching over its at present brown and bare hill-
sides, and the river winding away in the distance towards the bay
outside, where we could distinguish the five ships of the squadron

^ The population of Queensland (a conntry in itself more than five times the size
of Great Britain and Ireland) is 315,000, or under that of Leeds. Of these, 40 per
cent, were born in Queensland, 18 per cent, in England, 6 per cent, in Scotland, and
13 per cent, in Ireland. About 7,000 emigrants enter the colony from Great Britain
every year. About one-half the area of Queensland is still under forest There are
several gold-mines — the gold-bearing area is known to be 7,000 square miles : but
little has been done to develop the mineral wealth of Queensland at present owing
to the difficulty of communication over its vast area. The whole of the Darling
Downs are one immense coal-bed, and contain an inexhaustible supply of this mineral
in seams three or four feet thick, that lie close to the surface, over an area of 24,000
square miles. Iron, silver, tin, and copper, as well as precious stones, diamonds,
and sapphires, are known to exist in abundance. Of the imports (in 1883), amounting
to near on 6,000,000^. sterling, 48 per cent, were from the United Kingdom, and
another 40 per cent, from New South Wales. Of the exports, the value of which
was nearly 6,000.000^., 41 per cent, were shipped for the United Kingdom and
63 per cent, for New South Wales. The value of imports per head of population was
20Z. 28, (In protectionist Victoria they are 21?. Is. per head, and in New South
Wales, the free-trader, they are 261. 13*. per head.) The value of the exports per
head from Queensland is 16/. a?. ; from Victoria, ISl. Ss. ; from New South Wales,
20i. 198. The total tonnage of all the ships entered in 1888 was 1,437,842 tons ;
of this 1,426,649 tons were British.

C20 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

at anchor ; and in the other direction inland as far as we could see
hills were piled behind hills, all wooded and green ; here and there
only had they been cleared away for crops of sugar-cane and green
lucerne. The Admiral was driven up by the Premier in his buggy,
the first time anything on wheels has gone to the top of the hill.

In the evening the Governor held an " At Home." A supper
room erected of zinc plates and wooden boarding had been thrown
out in front of the porch of Government House, and the appearance
of the whole place changed since the morning. The rooms were
filled with beautiful flowers and looked very well. Many officers
came up from the squadron, and there were about 500 people
there, and a good deal of dancing. We are very sorry that we
shall not be able to see anything of the interior of the country.
Sir Thomas Mc'Ilwraith has proposed for us to run up by railway
to Toowoomba, and we should of all things like to have gone on
beyond to Roma (330 miles north-west of Brisbane) and then
ridden over the Mitchell Downs by the Maranoa river. But this
visit is so short that we cannot possibly manage it. To get any-
thing like an adequate conception of this great colony (which is
three times as large as France, its length from north to south is
1,300 miles, the breadth 800 miles, and the coast-line 2,550 miles),
it would be necessary to have gone up the coast to Maryborough
on the Mary river, and beyond to Rockhampton on the Fitzroy, a
finer river still, with a territory behind, and mainly supporting it,
as large as all England. The rivers of Australia increase in size
the further northwards they are : as is only natural considering
the fact that their volume must be dependent on the rainfall, and
that that increases as you get up into the tropics. In so extensive
a region portions of which (as for instance the Darling Downs) are
high table-land hundreds of feet above the level of the sea, there
is every variety of climate varying from tropical in the north to
temperate in the south and south-west. On the downs and high
table-lands the air is peculiarly bracing, and there even occa-
sional sharp frosts are common in the winter. The Queenslanders
however are exempt from the hot winds which visit the southern
colonies, and the northern nights are almost always refreshingly
cool. Until w^ithin the last eight or ten years the far interior of
this land was a mere blank on the map and almost unknown even
to adventurous explorers. Where Burke and Wills perished from
starvation is now a prosperous pastoral settlement, and rival lines
of coaches carry travellers in every direction — east, west, north, and

1881. QUEENSLAND. 621

south. All this seems scarcely suflSciently appreciated in England.
Here there is room for prosperous millions. Everywhere the
complaint is of the dearth of labour. Notwithstanding the
prevailing dislike of the hordes of Chinamen who wish to pour
into the land, there is no choice between resorting to their
labour or abandoning all thought of making railways, opening up
the interior, and generally developing the extraordinary resources
of a country so exceptionally favoured by nature. Any man with a
trade, and who has brains, and is sober and industrious, who may
have landed in Queensland without a shilling ought to be inde-
pendent, employing workmen on his ov/n account, and accumulating
money rapidly in less than five years from the time his foot first
touches the shore. For clerks it is a bad field ; but for the working
man, the artisan and the labourer, it is one of the best in the world.
But hard work is necessary for all classes of emigrants, for money
will no more drop into a man's mouth in Australia than in England.
Of the laad in the whole colony, which like that in each of the
Australian colonies is " nationalised," that is to say has been given
out and out to the people already in the colony by Great Britain,
only about 2 per cent, has as yet been denationalized or sold. 1,280
acres of agricultural land can be selected on a lease for 50 years, and
20,000 acres of pastoral land for 30 years. But a great deal of the
land is let in leases of 21 years, renewable for 14 more : but any
land can be resumed by the State at any time at a month's notice
whenever it is required for public purposes, the squatter being
compensated in such cases for all money sunk by him in his holding.
Thus the growth of the colony is not impeded by the vested
interests of the landlords. Land is let from 5s, to 25«. the square
mile. The public domain amounts to 400,000,000 acres of land,
five-sixths of which, if not nine-tenths, is admirably adapted for
European colonisation. It is only in the coast fringe, in the humid
district lying between the sea and the mountain ranges and high
table-lands, that there is the dense steaming heat of the tropics, but
these constitute at the most only one-sixth part of Queensland. All
the rest — more than 500,000 square miles, that is twice the extent
of the German Empire — is destined to be a white man's country
peopled with the overflow of population from Great Britain. The
west wind there is almost as cold sometimes as the east wind is in
England, and excepting among the sugar-canes there is no descrip-
tion of work that the white man cannot do in the open air, and
yet even this in their stem determination to keep Queensland a

623

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE,

1881.

white man's colony they will attempt. " Queensland for the white
man '' is the watchword of all parties. As in Barbados the first
English settlers all worked in the sugar-fields, so it is here now.
But as the race there deteriorated in the tropics, so here in this
particular it is probably attempting that for which it is not adapted.
The sugar industry will always require a certain proportion of
coolies who are necessary for the work among the canes, but with
that exception white labour will prevail everywhere. White men
cannot work in the canes because the dense steaming heat compels
them to work naked, and the work in the shade of the canes then
produces an irritation of the skin firom which coolies are entirely

WHITE LAB0UBSR8 tV QUEENSLAND SUGAR-nELDS.

free. They can be got from India under government supervision
at lOZ. per head passage money. The imported labour traffic from
the Pacific of the Polynesian races has almost entirely ceased, for
the climate is not suited to them. On every individual Chinaman
that lands, there is now a poll-tax of 30/. : no more than one
Chinaman may be carried in one vessel for every 50 tons of her
tonnage ; there is also a duty of lOZ. per ton on rice, their chief food.
But all this does not avail to keep them out. Their opponents argue
that white and coloured labour cannot live together. The coloured
(they say) will undersell and starve or shame the white out of exist;*

1881. PICNIC GIVEN BY THE MINISTERS. 623

ence. Should it be deemed absolutely necessary to till a portion of
northern Queensland by coolies, this party would be prepared how-
ever very reluctantly to have a limited territory clearly unadapted
for European settlement delineated and to make of it a Crown
colony along the north of Australia.

Aug. IQth. — Many Bacchantes to breakfast at Government
House : we set oflF soon afterwards, a party of twenty or thirty of
us in all, some on horseback, others in buggies, for the Ministerial
Picnic at Enoggera. We started at 11.30 A.M. and got there at
1 P Jf . But first we all went up to the Brisbane Grammar School.
The Chief Justice, the Hon. S. W. Griffith, and the other trustees
met us in the grounds : and we were introduced by Mr. Beginald
H. Roe, the Principal, who was formerly Scholar of Balliol and
took up this appointment on the recommendation of Dr. Jowett
and Dean Stanley, to the other masters. We planted a couple of
trees in the School Reserve at the top of the hill, and then went
into the school buildings and saw all the class-rooms and the great
hall, where all the boys were drawn up in their cadet uniform and
looked uncommonly smart and intelligent. The pupils attending
the girls' school in connection with this institution were also
present. They cheered vigorously for the Queen, the Governor,
and the Admiral. After asking for a holiday for them during the
rest of the day, Eddy told them that one of the most pleasing
recollections we should carry away with us of Australia, which we
were leaving to-morrow, would be that of the sound of their
happy voices. " We are glad to have come here to-day and to
have seen you all face to face. When at Sydney we heard of
those of your schoolmates who had achieved distinction in the
University Examinations there, and we hope that many of your
number will follow in their honourable footsteps. May all of you
as members of a school second to none in Australia prove true to
the discipline and education you here receive. And when we
come back to Queensland, as we heartily hope we may some day,
may many of you whom we see here to-day as boys be amongst
those we shall then have the pleasure of meeting as men, a credit
to themselves and to their school, as hereafter bearing no un-
worthy part as Queenslanders in the future of this great country."
There was a large gathering at Enoggera. Between two and three
hundred guests had been invited. Luncheon was spread in a
huge tent. There was some speechifying afterwards, but it all
went off bright and well. The speeches were very short and very

624 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

hearty. The Admiral seemed quite himself again, and in return-
ing thanks for his health, and that of the officers of the squadron,
which was proposed by Sir Arthur Palmer, said that this was one of
the pleasantest days he had spent in Australia. The Premier gave
" the Queen," and the Governor that of " the Ministry," our hosts
to-day. Mr. Morehead, the Postmaster-General, made a very good
speech when he gave the final toast of " the Ladies." Then we
youngsters all went boating on the lake, some of us in a large flat-
bottomed punt. We rode back into Brisbane by another road and
came home by the suspension bridge which connects the two
halves of the city. North and South Brisbane, one on either bank
of the river, between them they contain a population of 35,000.
The river here is about as broad as the Thames at Woolwich. It
was a warm, still evening, reminding us of one in the West Indies ;
the cicalas were chirping and the frogs whistling just as we re-
member them there. In the evening the Mayor gave a fancy
dress ball in the Exhibition buildings. About 1,500 people came.
There were a number of uniforms and of strange dresses and gets
up, some of them good. The Mayor made a fine-looking Burgo-
master of the sixteenth century. There were three bands playipg
in succession, so the dancing did not flag.

Aug. 20th. — Up at 6.30 a.m. to the sound of the cocks that
were crowing, and after a cup of coffee down through the Botanic
Gardens to the steamer Kate with the Admiral, Sir Arthur and
Miss Kennedy ; going down the river we picked up Sir Thomas
Mcllwraith and Sir Arthur Palmer off their houses as we passed.
Mr. Justice Harding, Mr. and Mrs. Gregory, and Mr. and Mrs.
Finley (the daughter of Sir Hercules Robinson) were also on
board. It was a lovely day and quite warm as we steamed down :
most of the houses near the banks had some bunting flying, and
looked very pretty. Right across the wharf at Lytton, the site of the
last houses we shall see on Queeusland soil, was an elaborate festoon
of garlands and flags, with mottoes in greenery. We arrived at
Moreton Bay at 11 a.m. ; the Kate made fast alongside the flagship
and we went off at once to the Bacchante. We were very sorry
indeed to say goodbye to Sir Arthur and Miss Kennedy ; they have
been so very kind to us since we have been here : and besides, this
is the last place we shall touch at in Australia, and during the whole
quarter of the year that we have spent in Australia from the time
when we landed in Albany, we have enjoyed ourselves more than at
any other place since we left England : everybody has been so very

1881.

MORETON BAY TO FIJI.

625

BRISBANE TO LEVUKA

1 I I I [ t I 1 I t I I r I f I 1 I I I I I 1 I I I I 1 I I I I I I I I r 1 F

Datx.

From Previous Noi>n.

At Noom.

Tempskatuse.

Conree.

Distance.

Wind.

Lat.

Long.

Sea.

Air.

Sail.

Steam.

Noon.

6 P.M.

Noon.

6 p.m.

Aug.

..•

• . .

...

S.E. 2-41

...

21S.

S. 86 E.

...

N.E. 1-2

26-56

154-55

S. 83 £.

188

N. 2-5

27-14

157-80

S. 80 E.

150

N. to N. by
E. & N. 4 •7-2

27-41

160-16

N. 87 E.

187

N.W. 5-6

27-31

163-45

N. 88 E.

145

N.W. 3-4

27-25

166-28

N. 82 E.

136

S.W. 3*4

27-6

168-59

N. 69E.

140

S.W. toS.E.! 26 16
3-4 1

171-25

28S.

N. 66 E.

111

S.E 3-4 T ; 25-81

173-18

N. 32 E.

S.E., S.W. to 24-46

173-49

N.N.E.

N. 72 E.

N. 1-3

24-36

174-24

N. 74 E.

N.W. to S.

23-52

175-31

Sept.

8 -5 -2

N. 86 E.

160

S.E. 3-4

21-48

17713

N. 80 E.

165

E. by S. to
E. 5

19-20

178-40

a1 distance.

E. to E.N.E.
8*4

1571

101

Tot

.... 16

72 mile

VOL. I.

S S

626 CRUISE OF H.ALS; BACCHANTE. 1881.

kind and so very hospitable. At seven minutes after noon we
weighed, and proceeded under steam at eight knots in single column
in line ahead. As the Governor left the flagship we all manned
yards, and the Inconstant saluted him with seventeen guns ; the
Kate, and two or three other steamers that had come down with
members of both the Houses of Parliament and other colonists
from Brisbane, accompanied us some way down the bay. We
were clear of the entrance by 5 P.M. and shaped course for Fiji.

As the shores of Australia recede from our view we are conscious
of very mingled feelings. We are glad that it has been our happy
privilege to visit them ; we are sorry they are not better known to
our fellow-countrymen in Great Britain. " Abundantia diligentibus
te ! Fiat pax in virtute tu^, et abundantia in turribus tuis. Propter
fratres meos et proximos meos loquebar pacem de te^ et qusesivi
bona tibi.*' — Ps. cxxi. 7, 8. After England, Australia will always
occupy the warmest corner of our hearts. We need scarcely say
"after England,'* for are not both part and parcel of the same dear
country ? What is ours is theirs, and what is theirs is ours. As our
past history is theirs, so may their future be bound up with ours
from generation to generation. We are united to them not merely
by the ordinary bonds of friendly intercourse which may exist
between alien nations, but by the ties of kindred, by the ties of a
common language and literature, by ties of common interests and
common institutions, and by ties of common allegiance to one
sovereign and one law. Our Australian fellow-subjects consist of
the stoutest and staunchest English, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish men,
who are showing at the present time an amount of energy and of
activity in all branches of commerce, education, government, and
everything that makes a people great, which have never before
been surpassed in the whole course of English history.

'* In this great island over scasi,

Where giant-like our race renews
Its youth, and, stretched in strenuous ease,

Puts on once more its manhood thews —
In this bright air and bouudh\ss blue,

Where Britons draw a deeper breath,
And patriot souls -create anew

The England of Elizabeth."

In the ten years between 1870 and 1880 the Australasian
colonies have increased 56 per cent, in population and nearly as
much in commerce, in wool production over 100 per cent., in the
acreage under grain 89 per cent., in railways 270 per cent. The

1881. " ADVANCE, AUSTRALIA." 627

revenues of these colonies have increased in the last twenty years
twice as fast as their commerce or population. They have more than
doubled themselves since 1870, and trebled themselves since 1860.
If in England the same sum could be raised per head as in
Australia, we should at present be dealing with a revenue of
245,000,000/., instead of with one of 89,000,000i The whole popula-
tion of this island continent is still, however, under 3,000,000, that
is to say, less than the number of the inhabitants of London alone.
But this fact is more portentous for London than in derogation of
the value of Australia ; for man for man, both as regards industry,
frugality, education, health, and attention to home duties, the latter
has a population of the very best material, and the child of the
poorest may here attain to almost any advancement if the stuff is
in the child himself.^ To face responsibility in this hemisphere at

^ There is of coarse a great field for emigration in Australia, and these colonies
offer splendid inducements for persons of the right sort. But people who loaf
about in towns are not the people to go to the colonies. People are wanted
who wiU work, and if they will only work they ai*e sure to do well ; but it is
idle to think that people who will not work in England will work in Australia.
Any skilled mechanic or any able-bodied labourer, or any domestic servant, can
obtain regular employment under pleasant circumstances, at twice the wagea which
he now receives in England ; and if he has any sort of chance and average health
and is prepared to roueh it, and dislikes strong drink, he rarely, if ever, fails to
win in the battle of liie. But the greatest danger to successful emigration comes
from philanthropists who send out ne'er-do-wells and bad characters to give them a
new start. Unaerfed and decrepit paupers, with their stunted brains and stunted
frames will find themselves in a worse condition out here in conflict with new and
overpowering elements of resistance, for they will be thrown entirely on their own
resources, and will not even have a worldiouse to faU back upon. Much vital
material no doubt that would circulate sweetly and healthily under proper conditions
out here is turned to rottenness amongst us in our over- populated England. On an
average out of our home-population, it is said, that of every three ordinary men one
takes to drinking, one idles or die-s, and only one fights through. Probably barely
10 per cent, of our " unemployed *' are fitted to come out ; but iShind them there are
an industrious class of people often very partially employed to whom, whether as
regards these colonies or themselves, emigration would be a real boon ; of these, some
thousands annually would be willing to leave if assisted and assured of work on their
arrival ; and to assist such to become Australian citi2ens would repay Great Britain
and would pay the colonies. Some of the Australian colonies have offei-ed to under-
take to stand between the mother-country and the loss of a single penny if she would
but encourage her surplus children to follow the flag. But up to the present time
such schemes for their and our mutual benefit have not found any favour in English
official circles. At present Western Australia sends out free both agriculturists and
domestics. Victoria ^ives no assistance towards paying passage- money, but in the
steerage of a steamship a man can get there for 16/., and land orders are granted by
the colony. New South Wales requires 61. to be paid by each couple under forty
years of age ; 4/. by unmarried men under thirty ; 21. by women under thirty-five,
and the same sum by children from three to fourteen, and agrees to nay the rest of
their passage and to furnish the ship's kit. Queensland requires 8f. to be paid by
unmarried farm labourers, and 11. by domestics, and pays the rest ; and has just
decided to pay for the passa^ of 10,000 additional emigrants every year. Practically,
however, more and more these colonies are excluding direct emigration, and sub-
stituting '* nomination " by those residing in the colonies of relatives and friends in
Great Britain. And this is only natural, since the colonists have to pay for bringing

S S 2

628 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

any rate is not found to be depressing, but rather an encouraging
stimulus to exertion and to duty. Well may we feel as proud of
them as they are tenacious of their union with the Fatherland.
May each and all, whether " at home " or here, have no higher or
more well-grounded aspiration than to continue equal members of
one family and one state, and, if England is to keep the place which
she has hitherto held among the nations, not only in name but in
reality, of one united kingdom.

Augttst 2\st, — A very fine morning and quite warm, with a
slight swell and gentle breeze from the north. After morning
service on the main deck, at half-past 11 A.M. made plain sail and
got the screw up. Men's dinner at 1 P.H. We are not sailing so
well 2A we did on our way up to Brisbane ; the flagship is much
better for the hogging she has had while lying in Moreton Bay,
and so are the other ships ; the Carysfort^ however, least so ;
they all beat us to-day except her.

Augicst 22nd. — Showery and squally, but were able to get the
bar up for the midshipmen in the afternoon ; the wind is fresh
from the north, and we are running along between eight and nine
knots all day. At 8 P.M. took in a reef in the topsails. There was
a great deal of lightning away to the west.

Aug^Lst 23rd. — ^At 7.30 A,M. out reefs ; still wet and puffy. Some
albatross are following the ship, they are very rare so far north as
this. The weather cleared up in the afternoon and the sun came out
brightly. The next four days we sailed quietly along with fine
weather ; the wind being nearly aft at times. One day the Gleo and
Garysfort were set to try their rates of sailing against each other,
and the Carysfort beat easily ; probably she has been more success-
ful in the way of shifting weights and this may have altered her trim.
But this was only one instance of many that show that ships are like
men, and one day do far better than they can another, without any
very apparent cause. On one occasion they will distinguish them-
selves and surpass our expectations of what they are able to do,

them out, and Great Britain pays nothing towards their going out. A colonist by
paying 2Z. has the ri^ht to have brought out free of any further expense any relation
or friend whom he wishes to transplant from the old world to the antipodes. Great
Britain multiplies 500,000 a year; of these, in 1882, only 50,000 (not one-tenth)
swarmed off to Australia. The excess of immigrants over emigrants into New
Zealand in that year was only 8,489 ; into Victoria, 10,880 ; into New South Wales,
19,317 ; and into Queensland, 17,043. If the Emigration Department were revived
at the Colonial Office and a carefully-devised system, in entire and thorough co-opera-
tion with the colonial governments, of state-directed transport to and settlement in
Australia wore carried out it would probably be greatly to the benefit of Great
Britain and of the colonies.

1881. BRISBANE TO LEVUKA. 629

and then again a few days after, under similar circumstances,
disappoint one, and do worse than was thought possible. One day
it is the Cleopatra who is lagging behind and keeping the squadron
waiting, another day it is the Carysfort, and another the Tourmaline,
and on other occasions ourselves. The kangaroo is doing very
well on board ; he is very tame, and will follow you about like a
dog. We are reading Mr. Grant's novel, Busklife in QiLeensland,
which he himself gave us at Brisbane, and we like it very much.
It is full of what we were told are very faithfully drawn pictures
of up-country life. Most afternoons we have either clubs, bar
or games, after evening quarters, as the weather is at present
beautifully cool. Thermometer 65"*.

August 2Sth, — Had service as usual on the main deck. To-day,
and the next four days, there was very little wind, and what there
was very variable. The weather was fine and bright, though we
made but slow progress. The sails were often flapping idly against
the masts with the motion of the ship as she rose and fell to the
swell. It soon also began to get warmer. On Wednesday
(the 31st) we were becalmed nearly the whole of the forenoon
without even steerage way, but in the afternoon, about 1 P.M.,
a nice little breeze sprung up from the south and south-east. As
we are just entering the tropics we think we may have picked
up the south-east trade, it is coming up cool and very delicious.

Sept. Ist. — A fine fresh breeze and we continue during the whole
of next two days and nights to make seven or eight knots an hour
though braced nearly sharp up. At 11 A.M. on Friday (the 2nd)
we sighted KJiandavu on the north-west, one of the southernmost
of the Viti group and rarely visited by the white trader, although
it is the island at which the mail steamers from Sydney to San
Francisco used to call for coal. It is thirty miles long and thickly
populated. A stray butterfly with large, dark, velvetty wings, six
inches at least across, came off to the ship.

It is hotter and damper, and the thermometer is up to 80°.
After evening quarters formed single column in line ahead. At
8 P.M. shortened sail to topsails and reduced our speed from eight
to five knots.

Sept, 3rd. — At 1.15 a.m. the wind drew round from the east
to the north-east. At 3 A.M. in the middle watch down screw,
and at 5 A.H. commenced steaming. At 9 A.H. shortened and
furled sails and proceeded in single column through the passage in
tiie reef that lies off the island of Ovalau in front of the town of

630

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1881.

Levuka. Over the reef there is a continual surf breaking with
monotonous roar day and night; moored in sixteen fathoms at
10 kM. off Levuka.

AT LEVUKA, FIJI.

Datb.

Sept.
4S.
5
6
7
8
9

Wind.

Tempebatubb.

Sea. 1 Air.

Noon.

6 P.M. Nuon. 6 P.M.

S.E. 1-2
S.E. 1-2
S.E. 1-2
S.E. 1-2
S.E. 1-2
S.E. 4-6

80
78
79

78
78
78

•

80
78
78
78
78
78

o ^ o

80 78

80 1 78
85 ' 79
84 . 79

81 , 77
80 74

This island of Ovalau, forty-three square miles in area, the
eighth in point of size of the Fiji group, reminds us of Madeira ;
it is mountainous and covered completely with lovely green, but
it has no red cliffs like those by Funchal. It also resembles
Dominica, but the natives have an entirely different aspect from
that of negroes. Ovalau affords a rather confined site for a capital,
as it consists entirely of very steep hills that rise to a height of
about 3,000 feet, and are crowned with great crags of black con-
glomerate and rent by deep gorges densely wooded. The only
available building land is a narrow strip on the edge of the sea
where Levuka now stands. Although of course the lower spurs of
the hills behind might gradually be covered with houses, yet there
is no possibility of thus extending the town unless by expensive
terracing ; the place therefore appears quite unfitted as a centre
for the government and rapidly increasing trade of the islands,
although in years gone by the smooth water of the harbour
formed by the reef was a convenient depdt for the small coasters to
run to with their cargoes collected from the many small islands of
the archipelago, some of the nearest of which we see off" in the grey
haze to the south and east. (The capital was removed from Levuka
to Suva in 1882, and the Governor now resides there for nine
months in the year, and at Levuka for the other three.)

There are lots of Catamaran canoes this morning moving about
inside the reef. They carry great three-cornered yellow cocoa-nut
mat-sails with a fringe of streamers of native cloth floating from

o
%

H
<

1881. WHALE'S TOOTH PRESENTED TO THE ADMIRAL. 631

their edge ; each canoe is balanced by a large outrigger, a beam of
wood or piece of cocoa-palm stem floating alongside and attached to
the canoes by bamboo poles, seven or nine feet long. The canoes
are full of great brown fellows of fine physique with their hair
frizzled and niade yellow by the constant use of lime, so that it
stands up stiffly at least three inches high all over their heads, and
at a little distance gives them the appearance in the sunlight of
being surrounded by aureoles of glory. The chiefs have just been
to present a whale's tooth to the Admiral. The tooth is of a brownish
yellow colour about six inches long and nearly two thick ; it tapers at
one end, and is suspended with two short woven dark brown cordons
from either extremity, in the same way as a hunter's or postman's
horn is usually drawn. In olden days the natives swam oflf shore
with one as a sign of honour and peace to welcome a distinguished
stranger. The chiefs have just been received by the Admiral on
board the flagship in his cabin, and standing round in a semicircle,
the first chief on the left hand took the tooth, then passed it on
to the next chief, and so down all the row until the last laid it on
the deck of the cabin at the Admiral's feet ; the flag-lieutenant
then picked it up and presented it to the Admiral. This is the highest
token of friendship and honour which they can bestow on a stranger
after anchoring. The Admiral was much impressed by their manly
bearing and straightforward look. They are as superior to the
Melanesian islanders to the westward as the Maoris of New Zealand
are to the Australian blacks ; but the Polynesians to the eastward
are in some respects their superiors. On leaving his presence they
were overheard remarking amongst themselves that he did not
seem "bored" by them and that he had taken favourably their
effort to please. As the canoe full of chiefs afterwards passed
round the Bacchante they all saluted with their strange sounding
long-drawn-out and deep cry, that resembles the roar of their native
surf more than anything else, Woh woh woh ! ! They w^anted to
come on board to see the Queen's " blood and sinew," but were told
an opportunity later on would be given them of seeing this ashore.
They went on down the line round the whole of the five ships of the
squadron ; they had never seen so many or so large warships — the
largest ship that has ever been inside the reef is the Wolverine —
the Inconstant and the Bacchante seemed giants to them. In the
evening we went ashore to dine with the Governor, Mr. Des Voeux,
where we met Mr. Thurston, the colonial secretary — who has resided
in the islands through all their changes, and has lived to see the

632 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

old disorder give place to order, war to peace, and himself has had
no small hand in it all — Captain Herbert, aide-de-camp, the Hon.
Mr. Amherst, and Mr. Allandyce who has come from Rotumah,
where the chiefs have little power. Rotumah is not Fijian at
all, it is an island that lies 200 miles away to the north. In 1879
a deputation of chiefs from each of the two hostile factions between
whom that island was divided arrived at Fiji to beg for its annexa-
tion to Great Britain, literally for the preservation of their lives.
For many years a fight had been going on, and the two sides were
too nearly balanced to render it likely the struggle would be ended
either by force of arms or mutual agreement. The island itself is
only nine miles long by two and a-half broad, it is fertile and thickly
populated, and celebrated for the manufacture of matting, but a
large proportion of the male adults are always absent at sea in the
small craft to trade among the various islands. They resemble
the Japanese and Esquimaux, and may possibly belong to the same
primitive race. They are all nominal Christians.

In the Fijian islands one of the most interesting problems of
government is being worked out — how, while an intelligent govern-
ing power keeps a firm hand on the helm, to interfere as little
as possible with native organisation. At first it was supposed
that there would be a difficulty about expenses, and that it would
be impossible to preserve the native form of government through
their own chiefs under an English Governor representing the Queen,
as the native overlord of all the petty kings, without costing the
Home Government a considerable sum of money. The success, how-
ever, that has attended the attempt surpasses the expectations of
the most sanguine. The English Treasury advanced 105,0002.
(which when the present surplus of revenue over expenditure
becomes larger will soon be repaid) in order that the experiment
might be carried out under the Colonial OflSce, and already the
revenue from the islands is about 100,000Z. per annum.

The Great Council of the Fijian clan chiefs meets in May
under the presidency of the English Governor ; this is really a sort
of brown man's parliament, where each member can make any pro-
posals he pleases, and all the Government proposals as regards the
natives are in the first instance made to them ; everything is
done through the natives, and by themselves.

[The Honourable Sir Arthur Gordon, the first Governor of Fiji,
and the real originator of the present system of government and
taxation, in a lecture given before the Royal Colonial Institute

1881. SIR ARTHUR GORDON ON FIJI. 633

two years ago, gave a very full account concerning all its details :
this has since been reprinted, and Mr. Des Voeux gave us a copy.
The Dutchman Tasman was the first European who is recorded to
have set eyes on, or, as it is generally called, discovered the Fijian
archipelago, in 1643. After getting clear of the reefs, he named
them Prince William's islands. Captain Cook more than 100
years later lay-to one night oflf Turtle Island ; after him. Captain
Bligh, turned adrift in the launch of the Bounty, sighted tho
group in 1789, but escaped the fate that befell many another
European either from the reefs or from the teeth of the natives.
In 1804 a number of convicts escaped from Botany Bay, and being
possessed of fire-arms, were looked upon as demigods by the chiefs.
In unrestrained gratification of the vilest passions, these twenty-
seven Calibans died off in a few years ; but one survived till 1840.
Meanwhile the venturous trader in fitful and hazardous, though
extremely profitable cruises, looked in for sandal- wood, sea-slug, and
tortoiseshell for the China market ; and even in 1835 a few white
men had settled themselves at Levuka, wild waifs and strays from
another world, as carpenters, blacksmiths, boat-builders. In 1851
the gold discoveries of California and Ballarat, with the constant
drift of diggers between Melbourne and San Francisco, landed more
adventurers at this halfway house. Ten years later there were 166
full-grown men in the islands who called themselves Europeans, and
an impression got abroad that the British Government was going
to take the islands, than which nothing could be further from the
wish of the English, for they resisted so doing as long as they
could. Thakombau, the hereditary chief of the island of Bau, after
acquiring power over a portion of Viti Levu and some of the small
islands contiguous to it, is said to have assumed in 1852 the title
of Tui Viti, King of Fiji. But as regards the greater part of the
cannibal archipelago his kingship was little more than nominal
He found himself moreover in a series of struggles with Maafu, a
Tongan adventurer, who, by encouraging civil war among the
various Fijian chiefs, was rapidly securing to himself the practical
sovereignty of the whole group. Thakombau, becoming alarmed,
appealed to the British Consul, who, aided by the timely arrival
of a man-of-war, settled the claims of the rival potentates. In
1858 he offered to cede the islands to the Queen on con-
dition that he should retain his rank and title of King of Viti,
give up 200,000 acres of land, and satisfy the claims of the
United States Government for 9,000/. for damages to American

C34 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

citizens. He and the leading chiefs signed the deed and sent it
to England in 1859 by the hands of the British Consul, Mr.
Pritchard, backed by the request of the Australians that we
should take them, who pleaded that they would be a great cotton-
growing country, and just then the cotton supply from the Southern
States had been suspended. The cession was declined. Mean-
while confusion in the islands with the white settlers, and with a
rivalry of various chiefs, grew worse confounded, until in 1871
Thakombau tried to frame a constitution for the kingdom of
Fiji with an upper and a lower house. After due election the
first Fijian Parliament met that year; the number of members
was not to be less than twenty nor more than forty. Though
manhood suffrage was the order of the day, all political power
was in the hands of the whites, and the natives, who were ninety-
nine out of every hundred of the entire population, were left with
the merest shadow of influence. The strangest scenes took place
between the ministers and the members in the hall of the Govern-
ment House at Nasova, until at last, 1873, the dreary play that
had failed to secure either the obedience of the white settlers or
the goodwill of the Fijians, and had only resulted in an empty
treasury, and in bringing all commerce and industry to a standstill,
came to an end, when a brand-new constitution was once more
elaborated, and there was to be but one house, partly nominated
and partly elected ; but so hopeless was the muddle into which
things had drifted that, Commodore Goodenough being there at the
close of the year, it was proposed to reopen the question of annexa-
tion to Great Britain ; and the island chiefs being all assembled
with Thakombau in March, 1874, made another formal offer with a
number of conditions attached. In September, Sir Hercules Robin-
son, then Governor of New South Wales, came over to Fiji, when
the king and chiefs made a formal and unconditional cession to the
Queen of the sovereignty of the islands, which was assumed by
Great Britain on October 10th, 1874, though the first Governor,
Sir Arthur Gordon, only arrived at Levuka in H M.S. Fearl on
June 24th, 1875. And if the Transvaal, which was taken over by
Lord Carnarvon about the same time as Fiji, has turned out to be
fraught with disgrace for the English administration, it is at least
so far cheering to see that here at least there has been no reversal
of success. Fiji is not a colony proper — that is, a country in
which the British race can be perpetuated without alteration of
the type. It can never at best be anything more than a foreign

1881. THE FIJI ARCHIPELAGO. 635

plantation like the West Indies or Ceylon. In this character it
is of real value, and has a prospect of largely increased prosperity
under wise and firm government : if it is only severely let alone
for another half century it may become a possession that will
produce coflFee, sugar, and so forth, for the ever-growing Austral-
asian market to a very respectable figure of millions.

The archipelago contains seventy or eighty inhabited islands,
some of which are of considerable size : it is beset with coral
reefs, and embraces altogether 254 islands and islets. It is well
supplied with deep-water harbours. It is plentifully watered with
many streams, the largest being the Rewa, which is navigable for
boats and steamers of light draught for at least forty miles from
the sea: it is near its mouth that the new capital and seat of
government, Suva, is about to be erected, on an almost ideal
spot for the construction of a great trading port. All the in-
habitants of the islands are good sailors, and give plenty of
employment to the boat-builders; all the inter-insular craft are
manned by them, and they are ever wont to be afloat with their
produce. The large islands are indented by bays ranging from
two to thirty miles in depth, and in all (except the very smallest)
there is abundance of clear, fresh water from stream or river. The
total area of the whole is slightly smaller than that of the Prin-
cipality of Wales. In the aggregate, they are of larger area than
all the British^ West India Islands put together exclusive of the
Bahamas.. The two largest are Viti Levu (the principal island of
the group), which is about ninety miles long by sixty wide, and of
an oval shape, larger than Cyprus, as large as Jamaica, twice as
large as Trinidad, ten times the size of Barbados, and six times
as large as Mauritius ; and Vanua Levu, which is rather longer,
but much narrower. The area of the largest is about equal to
the five counties south of the Thames — Kent, Sussex, Surrey,
Hampshire, and Berkshire ; and that of the next in size is a little
smaller than that of the three western counties — Cornwall, Devon,
and Somerset. Viti Levu has peaks which rise to about 5,000
feet above the sea-level. Both islands are very mountainous,
well wooded, and extremely fertile, the soil in the valleys being
almost everywhere deep and easily worked. A few are small
and low, and fringed with cocoa-nuts; others are large and
bold, bare and rugged ; others, again, clothed to their mountain-
tops with most luxuriant foliage. Every kind of tropical culture
can be carried on in them with advantage, and their climate

636 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

is for the tropics unusually healthy. Along the coast the mean
temperature throughout the whole year is 80**; but in the high
land in the interior it is of course much lower, and often at night
so cold as to make a fire welcome. The dryness of the atmo-
sphere and the cool breezes that prevail cause the islands to be
very healthy : malarial fever, common in other tropical regions, and
ague are almost unknown. The dry or winter season extends from
May to September ; during this the south-east trade blows with
more or less constancy. In the wet season, 'from October to March,
the winds are variable ; when the north wind prevails it brings
great heat and sultriness, but does not last long. January, Feb-
ruary, and March are called the hurricane months, though years
often pass without a hurricane. Often during the gales the heavy
tropic rains cause floods. At the time of their cession the islands
were inhabited by about 1,500 whites and 150,000 natives. These
are said to be of the same stock as the original black races of
India, Malaya, and Japan, which once occupied an area extending
from Madagascar, all through the coasts of the Indian Ocean, right
away to the most eastern parts of the Pacific. Fiji and Madagascar
have names in common for the cocoa-nut, the yam, the plantain,
and many other edible roots and fruits.

The group is 1,800 miles distant from Sydney, and 1,200 from
Auckland in New Zealand: the French penal settlement of New
Caledonia lies about 500 miles to the west, Samoa about the same
distance to the north-east, and Tonga about 300 miles to the
south-west. Thus the geographical position of Fiji with regard to
the other groups of islands in the South Pacific is so advanta-
geous that it may be hoped that in time it will become the grand
central commercial dep6t of them alL The south-eastern or wind-
ward side of the islands, which is exposed to the trade-winds which
bring up rain-clouds, is covered with dense vegetation, and on the
large islands with heavy virgin forests and creepers, which attract
the rain even towards the interior. But on the lee side, away from
the trade-wind, it is usually fine open reed and grass country, here
and there dotted with screw-pines, and on that side the climate is
very dry and almost arid. On the mountains, at about 2,000 feet
elevation, hollies, myrtles and laurels, ferns and mosses, grow. There
are many perfumed barks and woods in the islands, but the sandal
wood has been so stupidly wasted by the old white traders of semi-
piratical renown that it will now have to be restored by careful
Government superintendence. The process will be a long one, as

1881. AT THE TIME OF THE ANNEXATION. 637

the tree requires from sixty to seventy years to come to maturity.
So recklessly has it been cut, that it now scarcely exists except in
the interior of Viti Levu. The third largest island of the group is
Taviuni, about thirty miles long ; it is said to be the most beautiful
of the lot, with a mountain 2,500 feet high with a lake on its
summit, probably the crater of an extinct volcano. Nearly all of
the islands are surrounded by barrier reefs, and, with few exceptions,
they are accessible through passages usually found opposite to the
most considerable valley or river. Between these reefs and the
shore ships lie safely at anchor, as behind a natural breakwater.

When Sir Arthur Gordon reached the colony in June, 1875, the
state of things was anything but encouraging. Measles, which had
been carelessly brought back on the return of the ex-king from
Sydney after the annexation, had swept away 40,000, or about
one-third of the population, and left behind it gloom, distress, and
discontent, for the season too had been wet and unhealthy. It was
not strange that the people should have been sullen, and suspicious
of the new rdgime so inauspiciously inaugurated, and look upon
the disease as a scourge purposely introduced by the whites.
Nevertheless, his experiment then begun of governing these islands
simply in their own interest has been so far successful, that it not
only redounds to the honour and credit of England in its dealings
with native races, but also may well serve for a model when
other groups in the Pacific are willing to adopt it, for it secures
the goodwill and conserves the continuance of the native race. The
aim has been to infuse British supremacy as a civilising element
into the native system rather than to substitute anything else for it.
Native customs, unless when they violate morality and humanity,
are scrupulously respected. The Fijian people continue in posses-
sion of Fiji. Neither European diseases, though unfortunately very
destructive, nor European violence and rapacity, are forcing them out
of existence. The native polity has been retained, native agency
has been employed, and above all things care has been taken to
abstain from seeking hastily to replace native institutions by
unreal and superficial imitation of European models ; the latent
capacities of the people for the management of their own afiFairs,
on their own lines, have been developed as far as possible without
exciting their suspicion or destroying their self-respect. The
Fijian, both in manners and morals, already in many respects
advanced beyond the ruder stages of social and political life,
is possessed of those receptive powers which fit him for far

638 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

higher social and intellectual advancement. The people live a
settled life in villages of good and comfortable huts, they respect
and follow agriculture, their social and political organisation is
complex, and their laws for the descent of property and their
land tenures are elaborate ; they already read, write, and cipher.
Women are respected and hold a high social position, and in some
provinces are exempt, by native custom, from agricultural labour.
But in a considerable portion of Fiji the women perform the
greater part of such field-work. There is a school in every village,
and their chiefs exhibit capacities of thought and culture. On
the whole. Sir Arthur (Jordon classes them, in their present con-
dition^ with the Hovas of Madagascar, whom in many respects they
much resemble. Like them, the Fijians all profess, thanks to the
Wesleyan missionaries, a good deal more than a mere nominal
allegiance to Christianity, and it has undoubtedly largely influenced
the life and character of great masses of the population ; like the
Hovas, too, they have shown a gradual progress, which is of far
more hopeful augury than a rapid imitativeness of unfamiliar
habits.

The political unit is the village community ; here, as in India,
and, for the matter of that, in our own early Teutonic nation,
as also in the Russian mir, the nucleus round which the first
elements of society, when emerging from barbarism, naturally crys-
tallise. Such nucleus, however, is nothing more than an aggrega-
tion of families or houses. Each family in the village (assumed
to be of common lineage or descent) is the hereditary holder in
common of the land, no matter the number of individuals within
itself ; it is the only true owner of the lands, holding them for the
present and future use of the individuals composing its brother-
hood, whether they be full birthright members or only strangers
admitted to share in the benefits for a time, or adopted into it
for good. Each gens or family has a distinct name, often the local
name of the principal allotment of its land which belongs to its
chief or head-man. In every one of these villages, or collection
of one or more families or gentes, there is a council of elders
or fathere of such houses to assist the local chief, who is taken
always from one particular gens or family to which the hereditary
primacy in the village belongs. Such primate is appointed by
the District council. There are also various other offices which are
hereditary in certain families, out of which the immediate holders
are elected by the Village or district council.

1881. VILLAGE, DISTKICT, AND COUNTY BOARDS. 639

In the Village councils, which meet monthly, or as often
as necessary, the elders or heads of families, with their well-born
head, settle as far as possible all disputes that may arise between
the families of their village, direct what lands shall be culti-
vated for the year, and make arrangements appertaining to the
tax produce: take care of the springs and wells of drinking-
water for the village, see that paths are kept clear of weeds,
and that shade-trees be preserved near them and no rubbish
be left unburied. It is unlawful for any one to go to stool near
a village, either in water or grass or bush or on the shore ; the
earth-closet, with which each house is supplied, is alone to be
used : just in the same way as was provided for the families of
Israel in the Mosaic desert regulations.

An uncertain number of villages, sometimes few and sometimes
many, are grouped together and form a District, under a Buli, or dis-
trict or clan-chief. These, among themselves, are ranked as of the
first, second, or third class, according to the number of villages under
their control. Each on the first Tuesday in every month assembles
all his village chiefs or heads of families (gentes) in district council :
they, as a body, appoint any one of their peers among the other vil-
lage chiefs to a vacant chiefship, and may suspend them afterwards
for adequate cause ; they discuss and regulate all local matters,
such as the keeping the villages clean and healthy, the condition of
public bathing-places, the management of animals belonging to the
different communities as distinguished from any that may be in-
dividual property, the keeping open and the maintenance of roads
and bridges of the district, and so forth. All family disputes that
the village council are unable to settle are referred to them ; and
all disputes between villages, or succession to lands or boundaries.
They settle these, or refer the graver cases to the Provincial council,
for these clan chiefs of the district are again grouped under
the headship of a greater chief, the Roko Tui, of whom there are
twelve. Each of these, twice a year, in January or February,
and again in June or July, assembles the Bulls or clan chiefs or
any other persons of importance in his province (or, as we should
say, shire or county). A native stipendiary magistrate also sits
in each provincial council, which generally lasts about a week.
At this each Buli hands in a report of his district, and has
to answer a number of questions, as to how often he has been
round in the last six months to inspect the various villages under
him, their condition, state of houses, gardens, and plantations; if the

640 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

births, marriages, and deaths, are duly recorded ; what disease there
be, or anything to disturb the peace and regular occupation of the
people ; the condition of the schools ; and if he has held his monthly
District councils. The removal of all badly situated villages is enforced
by this Provincial council ; all complaints or inter-tribal disputes
arising from questions on customary usages and precedency are heard
and disposed of, or referred to the great annual councils of Rokos
under the Governor. This organisation is purely native, and has
thus existed from very ancient times ; it is not a brand-new paper
constituiton, but one that has stood very much rough wear and
tear. To it has now been added a meeting annually, in May,
of the Rokos with the Governor, as overlord of all, in a Great
Council, which is also attended by all the native stipendiary
magistrates (of which there are twelve in all), and by two Bulls
or district clan chiefs from each province, who are chosen for this
purpose by their brethren assembled in provincial council : thus
completing the apex of the pyramid of local self-government,
which is based upon the village community. Of clans or tribes there
are in all about 140 ; of families or houses about 4,000, residing in
about 1,220 villages. Politically there are thirteen provinces and
three outlying highland districts, under twelve Roko Tuis (Roko Abel
has two provinces under him). Four of these provinces contain
over 10,000 inhabitants each, seven over 5,000, two over 4,000, and
the remaining three under 2,000 each. The provinces are again sub-
divided into 139 clans or districts, each niled by the hereditary Buli,
and they each contain one or more of the 140 clans or tribes. At
the Great Council each Roko Tui makes a detailed, careful, and accu-
rate report of what was done at his own provincial council, and as
to the state of his province during the past year. When these reports
are finished, the subjects laid before the Great Council by the
Governor in his opening address are next each considered ; the
general operation of the laws and regulations, and any suggestion as
to executive and legislative measures which it is thought desirable
by those assembled that the Government should alter or newly
adopt. These generally show much good sense and practical
capacity for affairs. This Great Council also takes cognisance of all
disputes between provinces, or matters referred up to them from the
provincial councils, such as questions of boundaries, and re-settle-
ment of tribes upon their hereditary lands. The fullest and freest
discussion proceeds on each question, and though often warm and
animated, the greatest decorum and order prevail. Although

1881. THE LOCAL PARLIAMENT. 641

there are no special rules for the guidance of debate, the innate Fijian
respect for ceremonial usages does not restrain any from giving
his opinion, or from making known his grievance to the fullest.

The Great Council has no direct legislative pover, its resolutions
are mere recommendations. If the Governor approves of them,
they are brought before the Native regulation Board, which is
composed partly of Europeans and partly of natives ; then, if these
further approve, they go before the Legislative Council of the
colony of the islands, and if approved by them become law. This
Legislative Council consists entirely of whites, under the presi-
dency of the Governor; six members of it are unoflScial, but
nominated by the Governor, and six are official — the Chief Jus-
tice, the Commissioner for Native Affairs, the Agent-general of
Immigration, the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney-general and the
Receiver-general. The three last form also an Executive Council
with the Governor,

For practical work, as chiefs or otherwise, the native makes a
careful and diligent officer ; he is proud of his position among his
fellows and of the confidence placed in him, yet full of self-respect
and conscientiousness, and does his work with a thoroughness most
praiseworthy.

The employment of natives in the administration of the govern-
ment, as Rokos, is indeed a financial necessity, for no means exist
for the payment of a staff of white officials equal to the duties and
position, and though occasional mistakes are no doubt made by the
Eokos, yet they are cheerful and willing assistants to the Govern-
ment in the performance of its duties.

The District Courts for the exercise of summary police jurisdic-
tion are held every two months, and are presided over by the native
stipendiary magistrate. These courts have jurisdiction in all cases
where the fine does not exceed 30 shillings or the term of imprison-
ment three months. There is an appeal from their decisions to the
Provincial Courts. These are held quarterly; on them sit one
European and at least one native stipendiary magistrate ; they can
inflict fines up to 20/. or penal labour for three years.

So far for the method of government. Next, as regards the
system of taxation established by Sir Arthur Gordon.

To the ordinary sources of revenue such as customs, licences, and
stamps, the natives pay comparatively little ; with the exception of
cloth and cutlery, of which large quantities are bought by them,
they use few articles on which customs' duties are levied ; they may

VOL. I. T T

642 CRUISE OF n.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

not consume spirits, they do not take out licences, and they have no
need of stamps. Tlie tax imposed by Thakom ban's Government
was an uniform poll tax of one pound per man and four shillings
per woman throughout the group, but the largest sum ever obtained
in any one year from a population of at that time certainly not less
than 150,000 was only 6,000/., and of this sum a large part was not
paid by natives at all. For what happened was this ; a planter
would advance a native his tax, contracting with him for a year or
more of service, from the wages of which the tax was to be deducted.
The ordinary wages to an able-bodied man are stated to have been
one shilling a week, or 21, 12s. per annum, which, however, were
paid in kind and not in coin, and generally this was only about
one-fourth the man's due. Or supposing a native had got half a
ton of copra to sell, which according to the prices paid by the trader
to Government would be worth 6Z., the trader would have offered
him certainly not more than 3/. for it, and perhaps less; and
would pay this, not in coin but in cloth, knives, &c., of which
he estimated the value at perhaps double the proper amount;
so that the trader obtained 6/. worth of produce from the native
for goods worth 30s. The native knew he was imposed upon ;
but as the traders agreed amongst themselves not to underbid
each other, each one " working " his own district, the native had no
alternative but to take what was offered or leave his produce
unsold.

In many instances, therefore, the tax was simply not paid and could
not be paid by the native. When this happened, the legal penalty for
default was six months' imprisonment, which was spent in labour on
the plantation of any white who would pay to the Government the
amount of the defaulter's tax ; at the end of the six months there was
further labour on the plantation to wipe off the heavy costs of the
lawsuits, which had been paid by the master. The history of the
whole of this period is sufficiently disgraceful ; numbers were torn
from their homes and consigned to servitude, whole districts were
well-nigh depopulated by all the male inhabitants being thus, in
effect, sold away to European planters often in other and distant
islands

When the islands were taken over by the Queen this system was at
once abolished, and an arrangement was substituted by which all
except adult males were excused from all taxation, and the tax for
men was fixed at twenty days' labour in the year, from which
any one, however, could purchase exemption by money payments

1881. METHOD OF TAXATION. C43

of various amounts, according to the wealth or poverty of the
district in which he lived. Most, nevertheless, preferred to turn out
a nd work their three weeks for the Government. But as it was found
impossible to transport the whole population for twenty days to
those places where public works were being carried on, and as if
public works which were not needed were invented on the spot
there was a waste of labour altogether, after trial the present
system was substituted, whereby since payment of a tax in
money and in labour had proved impracticable, tribute was levied in
kind from the village and clan. This was simply to require from
all who cultivated the soil a tithe or some fixed proportion of the
produce as their contribution towards the public expenditure, and
it fitted in most readily with the communal system of the natives ;
it was adopted in 1876 unanimously in Fiji, and has in its
results succeeded beyond all anticipation.

The receipts from the native taxes in 1875 under the old
system of collection amounted to about 3,500/. ; in 1876 under the
new scheme to over 9,000/.; in 1877 to over 15,000/.; in 1878 to
20.888/., and in 1879 to 25,552/. ; (in 1884 to 17,734/.).

Besides the financial success there is the more important
question of the social influence of the new law. The amount of
the tax to be paid by each province (of which there are twelve)
estimated in pounds sterling is annually assessed by the Legislative
Council, the assessment being based as regards each province on
mixed considerations as to the amount of the population, and
the productiveness of the soil, and its degree of civilisation
and order. Tenders are then called for by the Government
as to the price at which the articles and various produce from
the islands for that year will be purchased : these articles are
copra, dried kernels of cocoa-nuts, cotton, cocoanut-fibre and the
like, tobacco, maize, coffee. The highest tender is accepted in the
case of each article. The amount of the assessment in money
fixed, and the prices offered for the various articles of produce so
that that sum may be raised, are then made known to the Roko
Tui or native governor of each province. The apportionment of
the shares to be borne by each district in the province and the
choice of the articles of produce which shall be contributed by that
district is made by the provincial council which consists, as previ-
ously explained, of all the chiefs of the districts under the presidency
of the Roko Tui. The next stage is the apportionment of the
tax of each district by the district council, which consists of the

T T 2

644 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

village chiefs of the district under the presidency of the Buli ;
and by this body the share of each village in the district is deter-
mined. Lastly the share of produce to be contributed, or work to
be done by each family in each village, is settled by the village
chief aided by the elders of the village.

The mode in which the articles are raised is left to the people
themselves: in some cases each village grows its own tax pro-
duce along with that which it grows for sale or domestic use, in
other cases several villages combine to grow their produce in one
large plantation. In every case the soil and the whole of the pro-
duce (except the tithe required) belong entirely to the people
themselves.

This machinery adopts as its basis the primitive village commu-
nity system as already found in full action amongst the people
themselves. On it all political and social institutions in Fiji
are founded ; it levies moreover the local rates for schoolmasters
and village police independently of the Government by a sort of
voluntary assessment. The pressure of the government impost
is thus more lightly felt than it would be if demanded directly
from each individual, and the natives themselves are rendered,
to a very large extent, active and responsible agents in the collec-
tion of revenue and thus feel that they have a share in their
government. They not only cheerfully submit to our dominion,
but they co-operate most usefully in our government. We have
not, in assuming the government of the island, taken anything
which was not ours. We have undertaken and accepted the duty
of giving them a better government than they had before, at their
own invitation.

But besides all this, the cultivation of articles of produce
for export has been largely promoted by this means. The
Fijian is by no means habitually indolent, and he is by
nature passionately fond of garden culture, though he dis-
likes prolonged and sustained work, having hitherto no need
for the unremitting and severe labour that the white man is
accustomed to in a colder climate. Although there are some that
are called fishing tribes, and others, carpenters or building tribes,
yet all these till the ground to a greater or less extent Few cases
will be found of any one, from a boy of twelve years up to an aged
man, who has not his own plot under cultivation each year, and in
some places even the women have their own particular gardens.
But the cultivation, though very neat and careful up to 1875,

1881. ITS PEACTICAL RESULTS. 645

had chiefly been that of food and articles for home use. Sugar-
cane, tobacco, yams, bananas, and the paper mulberry (the bark of
which is hammered into tappa or native cloth), yangona or kava,
were almost universally grown by the villages in addition to root
crops and plantains, but not with a view to exportation, although
the dried cocoa-nut and yams in large quantities had, of course,
been bartered to white traders. Of late, maize, oranges, coflfee,
and other plants, have been also taken in hand, while the sugar
cane is being grown not merely for consumption in its raw state as
formerly, but in large fields for the purposes of sugar manufacture.
The mode of cultivation is primitive, and is that which has been
pursued by their forefathers from time immemorial. Though it may
not be the most labour-economising system, the plantations are ex-
tensive and carefully tended, yielding good and often very heavy
crops. The implements of cultivation consist of an axe and knife for
clearing purposes, and the universal digging-stick for turning over
the soil. The latter, considering the soil and people, gives a better
cultivation than the plough would, and no foreign native introduced
yet into Fiji can compete with a Fijian in the effective use of the
stick. Whilst each individual attends to his own plot or plots of
cultivation whatever they may be, yet in the spring or planting
season, they work in communities. Thus a whole village will be
employed at one time in the garden of one individual. Beginning
with a house or family they go through the land of every indi-
vidual of that family or house, and then through those of each
individual in another family or house, until the whole of the village
gardens have been completely tilled. This common helping not
unfrequently extends to providing the seed to be planted as well as
the digging and working of the soil ; all that is required of the
actual owner being that he furnish a plentiful supply of good
provisions for the day. Besides their individual gardens they often
also have gardens in common, which may be cultivated, planted
and kept in order according to their extent and object, by a ivhole
family, or village, or district. Under the present system the area
of native cultivation is rapidly increasing, for the people have
already gained a juster idea of the value in white man's coin
of the produce which they raise.

Thus then this measure has been successful in raising aconsiderable
revenue, in stimulating industry and production, and in securing a
fair price for his produce to the native, while it has replaced a mode
of taxation perfectly odious to him by one that falls in naturally

646 CRUISE OF H.M.S, BACCHANTE, 1881.

with all his modes and habits of thought. Everywhere the increased
areas of cultivation, the enlarged villages, the good new huts, the
well-kept roads, the cheerful and healthy population, present the
strongest possible contrast to the aspect of the land before 1875.

While the native thus pays his tax in kind instead of in coin,
the only tax that can be levied on the whites, of whom there are
about 6,500 in the islands, is drawn from duties on imports, from
stamps, and from other small ofEcial fees. (In 1884 the customs
produced 41,166/. : shipping dues 7,226/.; licences 4,424/.; stamps
5,701/.) At the end of 1875, the revenue was 16,000/. only, and
the expenditure over 70,000/. ; the very next year, however, the
revenue more than doubled itself, and rose to 38,000/. ; the next
year there was a further increase, and in 1878 it was 61,000/.
In 1882 the revenue equalled the expenditure, and in 1883 con-
siderably exceeded it, when the first amounted to 106,814/., and the
latter to 88,276/. (The estimated revenue for 1885 is 84,575/., and
the estimated expenditure 80,660/.)

Sir Arthur Gordon, in leaving Fiji for New Zealand, expressed
his decided opinion " that of the sound and steady progress of the
colony to a position of gieatness as yet little dreamed of" he felt
well assured ; though his prophecy as to the annual expoiis of the
colony ever reaching ten millions sterling may seem over-sanguine.

The exports and imports increased from 219,550/. in 1876 to
415,268/. in 1880, that is, 100 per cent, during the four years.
(In 1884 they amounted to 779,866/.) Sixty times the amount of
merchandise is imported from British possessions as from foreign
countries, although most of the enterprising trading firms in
Levuka are Germans. The leading article of import is machinery
and hardware (160,000/.), next comes drapery, which is most largely
consumed by the native population. They take it in the shape of
sulus or cloths to wrap round their bodies, and in the shape of under-
shirts, which the more important natives now generally wear on their
bodies above the tappa kilt, and also in the shape of skirts, jackets,
and gay-coloured handkerchiefs for the women. There has been
no attempt in Fiji to force the natives to adopt European costumes
or give up their games, as at Tonga. The next most important
article is that of such simple agricultural implements as axes,
knives, &c. (The total imports in 1884 amounted to 434,522/.)

The exports have increased 120 per cent, from the time of
annexation down to 1880. (In 1881 they amounted to 174,145/.,
and in 1884 to nearly double tliat again, viz. 345,344/.) Sugar,

1881. INCREASE OF TRADE. 647

maize, fibre, fruit, peai-l-shell, pea-nuts, and coffee easily find a
market in Sydney, Victoria, and New Zealand. The fruit trade
between Fiji and Sydney has grown up entirely since the monthly
steamer began to run (from lOL in 1876 to the value of over
19,710/. in 1884), and so has the fruit trade with New Zealand in
like manner. The fruit at present exported is chiefly bananas, but
the pine-apple grows in all the islands most luxuriantly, as does
also the grenadilla (or passion-flower fruit). Oranges, shaddocks,
lemons, and limes may be exported in any quantity. The export
of sugar goes both to New Zealand, Sydney, and Melbourne.
(In 1884, 8,729 tons, valued at 218,224/., were shipped.)

The next most considerable of all the exports, the copra (of which
in 1884, 5,643 tons, valued at 69,642/. were shipped) goes directly
to Europe— either to Hamburg or to Falmouth. The copra is made
into oil, the fibre of the rind of the cocoa-nut when thoroughly
dried, either artificially or by the heat of the sun, is used for making
the coir which, in the shape of door-mats, brooms, or matting, finds
its way into every house and cottage in England, though at present
the greater part, if not all, the Fijian coir is consumed by the markets
of Australia and New Zealand. (Of cotton in 1884, 150 tons,
valued at 15,399/., and of molasses 4,500 gallons, valued at 7,000/.,
were exported.)

The annexation of the islp*nds has been therefore more than justi-
fied if the happiness and prosperity of the people and the preservation
and social development of the native race was the object in view.
They have been saved from deterioration, guaranteed in the posses-
sion of their tribal lands and in material comfort, and in every other
respect have been advanced. Nothing could be more discouraging
than the circumstances under which the system was started, and
few schemes have ever been carried out under greater difficulties.
The natives were doubtful and suspicious as to its effects, and many
questions arose out of petty jealousies between chiefs, and between
villages and the various councils, which have at times required much
patience to settle. Some of the European petty traders naturally
disliked the system because it put a serious check on their op-
portunities of making illegitimate profit out of the ignorance and
necessities of the natives ; but the larger traders approved, and more
so year by year as they see that the market is better stocked with
what they wish to buy. One chief objection made in the planter's
interest is that it interferes with the supply of labour for their
plantations ; since, now that each village works for its own benefit.

648 CRUISE OF n.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

it is no longer possible to obtain the draughts of men for labour on
the plantations as was previously the case when individually the
labourer had to work in order to gain the money wherewith to
pay his individual tax. They also make the general objection
that communism interferes with all individual liberty and
individual development.

But this communal system does not either crush out or
hinder individual development so much as might be expected.
In Fiji, for instance, the manufacture of native cloth, the plaiting
of mats, the making of crockery-ware, and other articles of
domestic and household necessities, are tribal specialities, in
either of which one clan excels and endeavours to bring to as high
a pitch as may be attained. These home and quiet arts are
confined chiefly to the women. Certain districts again are noted
for particular kinds of pottery, or for the quality of particular kinds
of mats, baskets, &c. ; there is no dead uniformity as of machine-
made and never- varying shape. The manufacture and printing of
different kinds of native cloth known by their special names would
indicate the tribe by which they are manufactured or the island on
which they are made. Many thousands of mats are plaited every
year, and the amount of native cloth prepared is enormous. No
Fijian considers that he has realised the idea of a householder unless
he has a supply in store on his ground more than sufficient for the
every-day requirements of his family, dependents, and of wayfarers
also. Besides food either housed or in the ground, he must have
rolls of mats and native cloth, as well as other property in store for
fJl contingencies, even to the shroud in which he will fold up his
dead. " Plenty to eat, and plenty to give," is the beau icUal of a
Fijian, whether chief or commoner. Furthermore, it has always
been urged by the clan chiefs and Rokos, by the head-men of
villages and families, that this communal system of cultivation
and work conserves the industrial habits of the race, and
tends to increase their wealth and comfort ; comprehending
as it does not only the cultivation of their food, the erection
of their houses, the cutting and building and purchase of canoes
and boats, the making of roads or whatever else may be for the
common good, but also places within the reach of every indivi-
dual, food, and a good house, no matter what his circumstances.
And certainly if patriotism and civilisation mean living for the
State and sinking individual and selfish objects and aims in those
of the community, this communal system produces them even to the

1881. THE FIJIANS AS MODEL COMMUNISTS. 649

ready and abundant outpouring of life and blood for what is believed
to be the advantage of the many, far more than the more complicated
political and social system of Western Europe does, at any rate at
the present day. It is Altruism in practice. Still* it were idle
to deny that the evil effects as well as the good of Communism
may be seen at work in Fiji. The opponents of the system state
that it is a terrible hindrance to the industrious, and eats like a
canker-worm, at the roots of individual or national progress. No
matter how hard a young man may be disposed to work, he cannot
keep his earnings ; all passes out of his hands into the common
property of the clan to which all have a latent right. The system
of a common interest in each other's property is clung to by the
Fijians with great tenacity. They consider themselves at liberty
to go and take up their abode anywhere among their friends, and
remain without charge as long as they please ; and the same custom
entitles them to beg and borrow from each other to any extent.
Boats, tools, garments, money, are all freely lent to each other
if connected with the same tribe or clan. The individual Fijian
invariably sinks his personality in that of his family or village, of
which he always acts as part, and this traditional feeling of centuries
will only slowly if ever change. His religion was that of worship
of ancestors : even after death the dead Fijian's spirit was indis-
solubly knit up with the interests of his kith and kin, his clan and
nation ; communism is thus ingrained in every fibre of his mental
and moral nature. The individual independence of a more advanced
civilisation therefore will probably never be attained by this race.
If they could be shut up from all intercourse with other races, it is
possible they might gradually develop towards it. But even then
the climate, the prolific soil, and the whole environment of the clans
in the South Seas, where all the necessaries of life may be secured at
the smallest possible cost of time and labour, so different to that
which has surrounded European races in their passage from com-
munism to individualism, would be against such growth. While if
suddenly they were left unprotected, and all the defences and helps
which communism now gives them were withdrawn, and such in-
dividuals as chose to break loose from the tribal arrangements were
permitted or encouraged so to do, there is very little doubt that
the whole people would quickly perish in the race of competition
with the European trader. It would appear to be simply a choice
between conserving them along with and through their native
polity and customs, or letting them die out altogether.

650 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881.

Native magistrates of course make mistakes and are sometimes
harsh : but their employment is absolutely necessary, as there is no
money to pay European officials ; all there are even now have very
low salaries, and yet specially fit men are required who know the
natives and their customs. There is no help for it, but to preserve
their communism. One consideration that may help to reconcile the
European to bear with it is the fact that with such a state of things
no poor laws are needed. The sick, the aged, the blind, the lame,
the vagrant, have always a home and food and raiment as far as
they consider they need it. Poverty in the European sense of the
word cannot exist : food, houses, friends, as long as they exist at all,
exist for all. It has even been suggested by some socialistic
enthusiasts, that Western Europe should return to the ancient com-
mune. Some portions of the race may doubtless yet do so, just in the
same way as reversions and sports to a former less-developed form are
often found in animals. Such reversions are constantly found both
in the mental, theological, and philosophical growth of mankind
as much as in their social and political ; for in physical and spiritual
phenomena the same laws of nature are at work. " Under this
system," we are told, " there can be no strikes, no petty trickery,
no jealousy, no waste of time. Each man's individual interest is
coincident with that of all. Where the labour is that of a brother-
hood the toil becomes ennobled. This latest advance of Western
civilisation is but a return to the earliest and noblest form of labour ;
the Arab, the Don Cossacks, the Maori tribes, the Fijian, are all
co-operative farmers : it is the mission of the English race to apply
the ancient principle to manufactures/']

At dinner, well-developed, tall, bronze-coloured, handsome Fijians
did all the waiting. A white boar's tusk, curved inwards like a half
moon, was worn by each as a sort of pendant in front of his tawny
neck. Their dress was white kilts and short-sleeved shirts trimmed
round the edge with scarlet. We hear that one ordinance that
prevails here provides for a fine of 50/. on any one who supplies a
native Fijian with spirits: even Thakombau's sons or those of
any other chief would not be able to " liquor up " on their own
account.

At 9 P.M. we heard the low roll of a drum just outside the
verandah which was followed by the sound as of one reading in a
monotonous tone of voice some general order, at the conclusion of
which there was the low roll of the drum again. On asking what
this was we were told it was the officer of the guard reading

1881. CHRISTIANITr IN FIJI. 651

prayers with his soldiers, and that morning and evening prayer is
now held daily by every native household in Viti.

** For truth embodied in a tale
Has entered in at lowly doora :

Which he may read that binds the sheaf,
Or builds the house, or digs the grave,
And those wild eyes that watch the wave

In roarings round the coral reef."

At 10 P.M. rowed oflf to the ship, when the roaring of the reef
in the otherwise utter stillness of the balmy tropic night formed a
weird commentary on all we had been hearing about.

Sept. 4tth. — Church as usual on the maindeck and Holy Com-
munion.

At 3 P.M. sailed with the captain in the jolly boat right up
inside the reef to where the Cleopatra is anchored off Nasova ;
landed, and walked up the jetty and across the road to Govern-
ment House. This was in olden days Thakombau's palace : all
natives as they pass still salute by turning their backs (as not
worthy to behold it), and sinking on their heels for a moment to
utter the woh ! woh ! woh ! We went to the native afternoon
service, which was held in a large hut on the green close by. To
this the guards marched across the grass and into church, and
were all seated on the ground at one end. The Governor, Mrs.
des Voeux and children, and ourselves, sat cross-legged on mats
at the other end. The white-kilted native teacher reverentially
performed the service, standing and reading the prayers from a
book — during which all the native congregation bowed forward
with their faces to the earth. It was a quiet earnest service, of
singing, prayer, and preaching, with no trace of sensationalism.
Mr. Wilkinson, who was there, told us that the text and the subject
of the sermon was " Our God is a consuming fire." The hymns
were sung, without any accompaniment, to English tunes. The
native chant, to which all the congregation monotone the Lord's
Prayer, sounded more natural, as only the men of the native guard
were present^ and their united voices gave out a low and true-
toned harmony. The words, rich, musical, and full of vowels,
sound like Italian, but bolder. The smell of the dry grass mats
was very nice in the cool, dark shade, while through the open
doors from the bright sunlight outside groups of our own blue-
jackets stood looking in with their hats oflf. The eflfect of the
whole was very impressive,

652 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. X881

** As the refulgent sunset . •
Stream'd o'er the rich ambrosial ocean isle,
And crimson-hued the stately palm woods
Whisper'd in odorous heights of even."

A little less than fifty years ago (it was in 1835) the two first
Wesleyan missioDaries, Cargill and Cross, from Tonga, with a
native teacher of that race, landed at Lakeba, in the Windward
portion of the group, the whole of the archipelago being at that
time cannibal. In time other missionaries followed, bringing their
wives with them to this scene of horror and death. The change
for which they laboured came by slow degrees, and there is probably
no chapter in the history of Christian missions more wonderful or
more satisfactory than that which relates to Fiji. The eighty
inhabited islands have not only renounced cannibalism, and curbed
their old vicious propensities, but have also struck out anew, and
have accepted the Christian faith, not merely to the extent of hymn-
singing and chapel-goiDg, but in such good earnest as to put to
shame many European nations. Fifteen years ago — that is in the
lifetime of half the present population — universal war prevailed,
the prisoners taken were invariably eaten, dead bodies were dug up
for food, and limbs cut oflf from living men and women were eaten in
presence of their victims. Human sacrifices were constant, women
bound hand and foot were laid on the ground to act as rollers for
the heavy war canoe of the chief, which thus, over their writhing
bodies, went floating, through heaps of mangled gore, to sea*
Others were buried in act of clasping the post of the new hut for
their chief, while the earth was gradually heaped over their
devoted heads. This waste of human life, willingly offered for
what they fancied the good of the community, and the frequency
of wars, made " to get meat," and the extent to which man-eating
and human sacrifices were carried, makes us wonder the islands
were not altogether depopulated. At the present time there are
over 1,000 Wesleyan churches in Fiji, built by the natives, and
more than 2,000 schools. Every village has, and supports, its own
church, teachers, and schools : all is done by native agency. Some
of the best of the native ministers (there are sixty-one Wesleyan
ministers in Fiji, all but eleven are natives) are in positions of con-
siderable control. Each minister has a few lads under instruction.
The devout earnestness which marks the character of these people
is not due to mere emotion or excitement, but is associated with
the practical virtues of charity, forbearance, and honesty. They

1881. THE FIJIAN RACE. 653

really love Christ, but find it hard to live Christian lives in the
harmonious proportion of the European ideal. Out of every 600,
250 are Communicants. The Fijian mind is a curious psycho-
logical study, being in some respects most complicated and refined,
and in others most childish. They have little regard for truth
under special circumstances, but are not thievish. Now that their
language has been reduced to printing they are great readers : the
children can all read and write. There are over 40,000 scholars,
and in all over 100,000 professed Wesleyans. The Catholic
missionaries followed the Wesley an in 1844. There are fourteen
of them, and eighty native teachers for the 9,000 Catholic natives,
and 1,000 children in their schools. Going back 200 years, and
making every allowance for the legendary traditions of the people,
there can be little doubt that the population was then ten times as
numerous as it is now, although there is reason to believe that
they were diminishing at the rate of 5,000 a year before the
annexation. What are the causes of decrease, and are they still
acting? Incessant war among the islands, and epidemics which
extinguished without remnant whole communes and tribes appear
to have been the chief. The epidemic of measles in 1876 swept off
one-third of the whole population ; since then there has been a slight
annual increase in the aggregate ; the excess of the birth-rate over
deaths being only a little over two per thousand. This continued
until 1884 ; but was then more than compensated for by a decrease
of nearly 2,000, through a very great number of children having
been carried off by an epidemic of whooping-cough. The number
of marriages registered is only twelve per thousand of the popula-
tion. In 1884 there were 111,743 native Fijians in the islands.

It is curious to notice that the same natural causes at work pro-
duce the very opposite effects upon the two races living side by
side. The winter season, May to September, for Europeans the most
healthy, shows the highest rate of mortality among the natives, and
the summer or wet season, January to March, usually the most
oppressive for the whites, is the most favourable to the general health
of the Fijian. The warm and humid weather of these months
suits him best ; while the cold south and south-east winds of the
winter months dispose him to colds and influenza, often epidemic.

The most hopeful feature is that the traditions of the people all
point to the fact that after previous epidemics the vitality of the race
has re-asserted itself, and their legends tell us of islands and towns
being; re-occupied and the land filled again with people. Are the

C54 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE, 1881,

circumstances and surroundings so changed, and the new influences
at work (as the declining power of the chiefs, whereby the necessity
for the daily performance of a very elaborate ceremonial involving
activity, industry, and cleanliness has disappeared) detrimental to
the prospect of the further increase of the race ? No doubt sani-
tary measures go here, as elsewhere, against the grain. Many of the
villages, surrounded by deep ditches and stagnant water, are un-
healthy ; and the race is most tenacious of their ancient inheritances
and of the foundations of their homesteads, many of which contain the
bones of their ancestors for many generations. Still, as the general
intelligence advances (and already two-thirds can read), the younger
generation we hope will see things fix)m a more rational point of view.

After coming out of the native church we went into the state
hut, which the people of Fiji have erected in the centre of the
green for us both. It stands on a platform built of stones,
raised about three feet from the surrounding soil, and is about
twenty feet long and rather more than that high. It is very
heavily thatched, and the ends of the crossbeams are adorned with
white shells {Ci/prca ovifarmis), one of the distinctive marks of a
chief. All the beams and poles inside are ornamented with twisted
string or sennet in various patterns, black, white, and brown. To
cover them all thus is a work of much patience, and takes a long
time to do : it is only done for a very great chief.

SepL 5th. — ^XJsual routine all the forenoon. In the afternoon
landed and went to stay at Government House for four days.

At 4 P.M. the Yangona drinking took place on the green. This
is the grand native ceremony of welcome. In the centre of the
upper side of the green, facing the sea, at the top of the slope,
mats were spread, where sat the Governor with Thakombau on his
right hand, and the Admiral on his left, all the captains from
the ships, and a good many officers and ourselves in groups behind,
the flanks being filled in with high Fijian chiefs. Down two
sides of the open square were ranged the crowds of Fijians who
had come in from a distance. These marched up in detachments
with all sorts of oflTerings of food (or magiti), of yams, and all
sorts of roots and fruit, sixteen roasted oxen, and fowls and turtles
without end, which they piled in front. These last were afterwards
taken on board the flagship, and given out next day to the ships of
the squadron. Then Thakombiu rose, and, standing (which he had
never done when making an oration in his life before) in front of
the Governor and Admiral, in the name of the assembled chiefs

^^^^H

w^i

■.*'jC '

fa
O
m

1881.

KAVA DRINKING.

655

and people, formally welcomed the squadron to Fiji ; he ended by
presenting a magnificent whale's tooth as tabua to Eddy, and then
the preparation of the Yangona began. The root of the Yangona,
called Kava in all the islands to the Eastward, had on this occasion
been grated and powdered before it was mixed with water in a huge
dark-brown wooden bowl on four legs ; after having been stirred
round, and wrung out through light yellow bunches of hibiscus fibre
like fine netting, it was brought to each of us in flat bowls formed of
the sawn-oflF end of cocoa-nuts. Eatu Tiinoci, the burly and giant
son of Thakombau, sorved the Yangona, and this he had never

YAKQONA. OR KAVA nRINKISO.

done in his life before. The Governor drank first, then Thakombau
and the Admiral, and after that the captains and the other chiefs.
As each drank the rest clapped their hands in time together, and
shouted Vinaka ! Vinaka ! The proper thing to do was to empty
the little flat bowl and send it spinning with a twist of the wrist
across the mat in front of you to the cupbearer, who replenished it
for the next. Some, however, merely sipped and passed it on to
those beside them. The liquid was of a creamy yellow colour, and
the taste was somewhat bitter, reminding us of chalk mixture, with
a flavour of ipecacuanha. It is said to be very refreshing, and
those who take it immoderately, although they temporarily lose the

C5G

CRUISE OF H.M S. BACCHANTE,

1881.

steady use of tlieir lower limbs, yet preserve their heads clear and
unaffected.

After this ceremonial-drinking was over, several mekes were
performed. These consisted of native Fongs and dances combined,
and are dramatic, religious, comical, warlike, and sometimes romantic
in turn. The men who took part in them wore kilts of native
cloth, with fringes of dark water weed, or long reedy grass
gracefully draped over their bronzed and well-oiled bodies, and
coloured leaves or ferns strung over one shoulder and round the
waist, or sometimes twined about the arms, and legs below the knee.
The dance consists of many varied figures, most of which are full of
vigorous action, while the non-dancers squat in the middle, some

MEKK DANCING.

clapping hands in time, others beating time on the ground with
short hollow resonant bamboos which they thump downwards, per-
pendicularly, as drums on the ground, but all singing. The words
of some of the songs are very old, and never alter from the dialect
in which they were first composed, so that portions of them are not
understood by the singers themselves. Each district and clan has
a dance peculiar to itself. Those given this afternoon were
performed by the Batiki men, and by those from the island of
Rewa, with exemplary precision. The dances are all quaint and
wild, with much pantomime and graceful action, and constantly
changing grouping of fans, spears, or clubs. One line advanced

1881. MEKfi DANCING. 667

— all the men — with clubs, which they swung in time together,
sawing them sideways, in front of the body, from left shoulder to right
hip, one movement of the arms for each stride of the legs forwards
as they charged across the open, tlien wheeled right-about-face,
and charged again the other way, with fresh club drill, but this
time waving the clubs forward with the simulated action of striking
from over the head downward to the knee, but with the same
united rhythm of action. Other bands went through spear drill in
a similar way. Many of the figures of the dance are very intricate,
and when one line of men coming from one side the square met
another wheeling up from the opposite side they passed through each
other s ranks. The rapidity of their movements and the flexibility of
their bodies is something marvellous. It seems as if every muscle
was in action; and all the postures are graceful. The dance gets
wilder and more excited as it goes on, generally ending with a yell.
The ground resounds to the simultaneous and wellrtimed stamping
of the united multitude, and the equally well-timed Kentish fire
of hand-clapping, with the united cry, Vinika, Vin&ka ("good,
good"), between each clap. Most had their faces painted with
every variety of colour in stripes, circles, and spots. Some were all
scarlet ; some half blue and half scarlet ; some half plain and half
spotted. Many were entirely blackened down to the waist, or had
their noses painted bright scarlet, and the rest of the face black.

Most men and women alike wore a kind of petticoat or kilt,
that extended from the waist to the knee, all the amount of dress
required in this hot climate. The missionaries have shown great
good sense in dealing with the native amusements and customs,
discriminating between the innocent and the evil. All this exercise
is but an outlet for their exuberant spirits : and certainly conduces
to their health, amuses them, keeps them out of mischief, and has
altogether as beneficial a tendency socially as the preservation of
their organisation into village communities and clans has politically.

The Admiral, captains, and the executive council of the island
dined with the Governor. It was cooler in the evening in tho
verandah,^ but there was not a breath of air stirring, although we
could see the clouds high up aloft overhead, drifting quick with
the south-east trade across the face of the full moon. During the
night we could bear the guard striking the hours on the big drums
that used to be used at cannibal feasts, but which are now kept in
front of Government House : and the laughing jackass in the
woods behind, whose cry much resembled that of a peacock.

VOL. r. u u

1)58

CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE.

1881.

September 6ih. — At 10 A.M. started with Captain Herbert and
Mr. Thurston in the Governor s gig manned by stalwart cheerful-
faced and bronzed Fijians in white kilts with scarlet bands, to row
to the native village further along round the point beyond Nasova.
On the beach where we landed, fringed with cocoa-nut palms, there
were a number of the native canoes drawn up, one more than 100
feet long, and double, the smaller canoe serving as a powerful out-
rigger. The huts of the village, each an oblong with a heavy
thatched roof and wattled sides constructed of palm-leaves, seemed
dropped down here and there anyhow under the cocoa-nut trees.
We called on the Vuni Valu (war-club) as Thakombau is entitled

Ol'TmCOER CANOE ON liCAClI.

by his men, and found him just preparing to return to Mbau on
account of the illness of his wife Audi Lydia ; the hut, an oblong
about thirty feet in length, was beautifully clean, carpeted through-
out with dried grass mats, the hut poles carved about with elaborate
geometric patterns ; these poles not only supported the crown of
the roof but also the frame- work which ran all round the space
where the slope of the roof and walls met, while elaborate designs
on tappa were hung as tapestry all about. The doorways were
on the two sides of the hut, each four feet wide and of about the
same height ; the doors themselves were mats which were raised
like curtains as you pass in. This old gentleman has seen many

1881.

FIJIAN STATURE.

659

very strange things; he was at his wit's end, what with stray
European settlers and Maafu, King of Tonga, when he gave up the
islands to the Queen. Leaving him we walked through the
village and were greeted everywhere by the groups of men who
were about, who sat at once as we passed, all joined in the tama,
the curious deep-toned acclamation of Dah-woh ! Dah-woh ! which
is the vassal salutation to their feudal lord. Europeans rise to do
honour, these sit. Taking the average height of more than 50,000
persons of various races, the Fijians are shown to be the tallest.
Their average stature is 5 feet 933 inches : next to them come

GROUP or FIJI MFN.

the Patagonians with 5 feet 9 inches, then the Negroes of the
Congo, 6 feet 895 inches: after them the Scotch with 5 feet
8*61 inches : then the Irish, the English, and the Welsh, these
last with an average of 5 feet 766 inches. At the bottom of the
list stand the bushmen, with an average height of 4 feet 4*78 inches.
The difference between the tallest and the shortest races is 1 foot
4*55 inches, and the average height of man is 5 feet 5J inches
according to this table. The women appear to be equally stalwart
with the men, and are intelligent-looking, bright, and modest.
Nowhere is etiquette observed more rigidly than in Fiji ; all are

u u 2

660 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

used to family, village, and clan ceremonial, from earliest infancy,
so that each action of every man's life is discharged as one due to
the body to which he belongs ; in no class of men has the individual
been so permeated with the sense of his relationship to his comrades
and to the body politic as in Fiji ; each man shows a sort of simple
and innate courtesy to every other ; perhaps it is this communal side
of their nature that has brought them so readily to accept with the
simplicity of children the faith of Christ.

We walked on up the hills to Mr. Thurston's botanic garden ;
it is situated in a beautiful valley in which he has collected all
sorts of tropic plants and shrubs. We slowly rose up, though now
and then more steeply along a regular mountain footpath on
which there was only room for one to go at a time, as it wound
amongst the rocks, ferns and crotons, scarlet, crimson, purple and
primrose, as well as every tint of green from the most delicate to
the darkest, shaded with chocolate and maroon. He bestows great
care in collecting the finest kinds from Rotumah and other far
away islands, and sends them away to all parts of the world.
It was very hot, but looking back over the village to the coral
reef and islands beyond, every now and then the view was very
fine, especially from one spot, where the ground showed traces of
having been cleared, under some old trees. Here we were told
a native village had at one time stood ; of this one large oven,
(where man was wont to be cooked) alone remained. The spot was
selected because, we were told, there was nearly always here at the
mouth of the valley a breeze or slight movement in the air. Down
below, we saw the Cleopatra practising firing at a target, and heard
the natives shouting in surprise after every shot.

The water inside the coral reef is of a bright cobalt blue, the
sea outside the white line of the coral barrier is to-day indigo.
Inside the surf it is not, however, all of one tint of blue, for the
depth of water is very irregular, and in some places there are
patches of white sand at the bottom, so the tints of the water were
of all shades, from emerald-green through orange and yellow up to
purple and blue. At high water the reef is covered, but at low
tide patches of the white coral here and there stand up high and
dry. The hoarse roar of the breakers is continuous all day and
night, but you notice it more at low water, and still more when
there is a little breeze landwards off the sea. The passage through
the reef is plainly marked by a break in the white line, and a broad
roadway of deep blue, connecting tho inner waters with the deep

1881. ACCLIMATISATION OF PLANTS. G(5l

beyond ; two wooden white pyramids on the hill-side above the town
by day, and a red and white light by night, are the leading marks
for the entrance of the harbour.

After resting a bit under the trees, we soon afterwards reached
the garden, through which there was a splendid bright stream of
water flowing ; here, under the shade of the brown rocks and trees,
there were several pools, in which we had some delicious bathing.
Two of the native crew of the gig had brought up the luncheon
baskets on their shoulders, and one of these now finding something
had been forgotten, ran back all the way to the Qovernment House
and up here again in half an hour, covering the ground in fifteen
minutes each way — he must have gone at more than a trot the
whole distance. The other presented Eddy, while he was in the
water, with a strange leaf and flower, as a little ofiering; he
did this in the most simple and natural, and yet dignified
manner. After drying ourselves, we walked about the garden,
and saw the bananas, cotton, teak, coffee, cacao, palms and
all sorts of strange plants, which Mr. Thurston, after cultivating
here, disseminates over the island. In 1876 he distributed his
first thirty bushels of maize to be sown in native gardens : last
year (in 1880) 30,000 bushels were exported, all raised from
that seed.

[No finer tobacco is anywhere grown than that which can be
raised in Fiji, and the cotton produced here is admitted to be
of the best description. The first grown in the islands was planted
in 1863 by the American consul, but it is doubtful whether its
cultivation will now pay, except under specially favourable con-
ditions of market, such as were produced by the American civil war.

As regards coffee culture, Fiji is in much the same position as
Ceylon was forty years ago. The shnib was only introduced
from Ceylon four years ago and planted out into regularly formed
estates, though previously patches of coffee (supposed to have
been originally brought from South America) had flourished most
luxuriantly. Not only Europeans but also some of the natives
are taking to its cultivation. The great thing is to see that
the plantations are sheltered from the south-east trade winds,
but no trees that will cause much shade must be left, as coffee
does best in the open. Plantations at an altitude of 1,000 feet in
Fiji are in the same conditions as those at about 3 500 feet in
Ceylon, but the coffee on the coast lands, though it yields well,
gives a smaller berry. Seeds, when planted in the ordinarily careful

662 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

way, quickly germinate, and the seedlings are fit for use in seven
months. If planted out in October or November it will yield a
maiden crop of 4 cwt. per acre in about two and a half years, and
almost any weight up to 15 cwt. per acre may be picked in successive
years, according to variations in climate, soil, and weather. The
shrubs are best about six feet apart, otherwise in the third year,
from the rankness of the soil, they overlap ; they may be let grow
five feet high without topping in well-sheltered places; handling
and pruning must be looked to, and the weeding in many districts,
owing to the scarcity of local labour, will prove troublesome for
some few years yet. Buildings of a substautial character can be
erected at a moderate cost, fine hard wood being plentiful in
the jungle, while lime is made from the coral which abounds on the
coast. The leaf disease has found its way here, but is not near so
destructive as in Ceylon, as the trees here run veiy much indeed to
foliage and wood, and the disease rather lessens the crop than in-
jures the trees. It has been calculated by the sanguine that coflFee,
to the value of three or four millions sterling, will be exported before
many years are past.

Ginger is one of the wild plants of the Fiji jungle; the
best, however, has been brought from Ceylon ; small knobs
are planted two feet apart in rich ground well dug up and free
from roots and stones. The crop matures in nine months, and
after being scalded in boiling water is dried in the sun ;
exported in this state it finds a ready market at 2os, per cwt.
though if it could be bleached a far higher price could be
obtained. As the growth of sugar increases in Fiji, preserving
ginger may become a large industry, as it does not require large
means.

In Ceylon cinchona has proved a great success, although the
climate and soil are less favourable to it than in Fiji. In Ceylon
the incessant downpour of rain in the monsoons damages the leaves
and branches and acts injuriously to the roots, which again in the
dry months there are apt to wither ; in the alternate rain and sun-
shine of Fiji throughout the entire year the young cinchona plants
grow much larger and more thoroughly vigorous than any seen in
Asia at the same age, so much so that it is hoped that the 4 years*
bark in Fiji will be equal to the 5 years' in Ceylon ; while owing to
Fiji being within the belt of the south-east trades, and the tem-
perature being cooler and the soil richer, it, like the coffee, can be
cultivated at a lower elevation than in Ceylon, At present

1881. COCOA-NUTS. 663

cinchona affords a better prospect of profit than any other article of
cultivation, though not altogether free from risk, but nothing can
be known with certainty until the first crop is gathered which
will not be for several years yet.

The systematic planting of cocoa-nut trees with a view to copra
is something quite new ; none was exported from Fiji before 1870,
and now that exported is worth about 50,000/. per annum, and
amounts to about 4,000 tons ; at present, however, this copra is the
yield from old trees planted years ago ; the 6,000 acres and more that
have been thus planted out since 1871, when they begin to yield, will
double the exports of copra from Fiji, and represent an annual
value of over 100,000/. The cocoa-nut trees are planted in rows,
thirty feet apart, fifty trees to the acre ; they are in full bearing
after they are seven years of age, and then produce about half a ton
of copra per acre, and about the same amount of cocoa-nut fibre.
The value of both the copra and the fibre is about 12/. per ton.
Up to the fifth year there is the expense of weeding to be taken
into account ; after that time the trees are sufiiciently tall for cattle
and sheep to graze and keep the weed down. When the nuts are
first planted, crops of cotton and maize are grown amongst them,
as long as they do not produce too much shade. The cocoa-nut is
generally baked in huge ovens, though sometimes it is dried by the
natives simply in the sun, but then has to be watched, in order that
it may not be injured by the dew. The best copra that can be made
is produced in four or five days. The disadvantage of this simple
sun-drying process is that in showery weather the whole of the raw
material is spoiled; the drawback to the artificial drying is that copra
that has any taint of smoke about it fails to fetch a high price. The
best situation for the full development of the cocoa-nut tree is near
the sea, as salt, in some form, is essential to its vigorous develop-
ment ; sandy beach flats, where the trade blows in from the sea over
the trees all the year round, are its favourite haunt, though in some
parts of Fiji it flourishes well at an elevation of 500 feet. After
choosing the nuts that you intend to plant, put them in the shady
nursery to sprout; they cost from 21. to 3/. per 1,000. When the
land is cleared, they are planted out from twenty-four to thirty feet
apart, the latter near the sea beach, the former on liigher land ; the
former will give seventy-five trees per acre, the latter only fifty, the
quincunx /. gives more room to the trees, for the space occupied,
than any other method of planting. Each hole is at least two feet
deep and two feet broad, and the soil is thrown up all round. On a

664 CRUISE OF H,1£S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

showery day the cocoa-nuts, with a sprout from one of the three
eyes protruding nearly a foot, are taken up and carried to the field ;
they have to be carefully held over the hole in one hand, with the
other a little soil off the sides of the hole is worked down gradually
all round the sprout, until the nut is just covered. The soil is then
pressed d(»wn with the foot and the work is done, although the
holes are still nearly a foot deep, in order that the rain may oome to
the young plant ; it is not till the end of a year and a half, when
the young tree has made a fine start, that the hole is thus washed
down.

In the third year a space round each tree, of at least six feet, must
be kept well weeded, and the soil constantly loosened ; in the fifth
year twenty cattle to every hundred acres, if turned in, will eat down
the weeds and manure the ground ; from this time onwards it will be
necessary to employ one man to every twenty acres to remove dead
leaves and prune the trees. Some cocoa-nuts begin to bear fruit after
the fourth year, but most not before the seventh, after which the
yield steadily increases for five or six years more, when the maximum
is reached, ^though they continue bearing heavy crops for sixty or
seventy years, and are fairly fruitful up to 100 years of age; on an
average each tree bears ninety nuts per annum, sometimes 120.
Taking the average in Fiji of eighty nuts per tree, each acre should
give 5,500 nuts per annum ; these will make one ton of copra,
(which is the dried kernel of the cocoa-nut), and as the picking,
the husking, and the drying, certainly will not cost more than 1/.
for that quantity, there is left a profit of 11/. per acre per
annum. The copra sells in Europe at from 20/. to 25/. per ton.
Besides this, however, there is the husk, which by the use of
proper machinery is manufactured into coir fibre. The husk
is removed from the nuts in a few seconds by a sharp-pointed
stick stuck in the ground, and then tossed into large tanks,
where they steam and are soaked for a day, after which they are
passed between very powerful fluted metal rollers, which flattens
them out and softens the woody matter. They are then put into
a large cylinder or drum, filled with sharp steel teeth, which
revolve by steam at great speed ; the teeth reduce the husk to coir
fibre. There are several companies in Fiji that do this, and other
qualities of coir, called bristles or brush fibre, are made by other
machines, and other qualities again for upholstering and rope manu-
facture. The husks from 7,000 cocoa-nuts produce about one ton
of fibre, which sells in Fiji at about 10/. per ton ; brush fibre is

1881. SUGAR-CANE. 665

worth about 22i per ton ; the cost of labour to produce one ton of
fibre, exclusive of cost of machinery, may be put down at about 5/.

The cost of the land and the labour per acre for bringing a cocoa-
nut plantation into full bearing varies from 20/. to 40/. If, there-
fore, a person has capital to purchase 500 acres of suitable cocoa-nut
land, to clear, plant and cultivate them up to full bearing point,
he may calculate on a nett income of at least 5,000/. per annum
thereafter, on an expenditure of 15,000/., a little over 30 per
cent, for money invested. Of all crops, none give so little anxiety
as cocoa-nuts ; the tree has few, if any, diseases or enemies ; whether
it rains or keeps fair matters little, the tree grows on, and the fruit
goes on falling. No crop at so small a risk makes such a large
return.^

Arrowi'oot and tapioca grow very well in the islands, the latter
is especially cultivated by the natives for their own food; they
prepare it by peeling, steeping, and afterwards kneading it into
cakes, which are boiled and eaten, but the favourite way is to bury
it in pits, where it undergoes a putrid fermentation, and when dug
up and cooked has a most pungent odour and taste ; it is always in
demand for travelling (and the Fijians are great travellers from isle
to isle), as being portable and retaining its flavour for many days.

The manufacture of sugar has quite recently been begun, a very
large sugar usine with the latest steam machinery has just been
established by a Sydney company, near Suva, on the banks of the
Bewa. A large area has already been planted with canes, and the
machinery manufactured in England weighs over 3,000 tons.
From 80,000/. to 100,000/. is sunk in the company's gear and
floating stock, and when in fu]l work the mill will be capable of
turning out some 350 tons of sugar per week. The total area of
land in the Fiji group, suitable for growing sugar-cane, is approxi-
mately estimated at 1,000 square miles, or one-seventh of t)ie
whole. These cane-growing lands are situated in all the principal
islands, in the interior of both the large islands as well as near
the coast and the flats on the banks of the river. In 1878 a
block of about 650 acres of fine cane land, bounded on one side
by a navigable river, was sold at auction by Government for 1/. 10s.
an acre. When these cane lands have been fully occupied and
planted with canes, and proper works put up for crushing the

' All these statements an to trade and profits are taken from official soorces, but
they may possibly nevertheless require balancing with other considerations. Labour
or instance has become far more costly in Fiji during the last four years.

666 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

cane and making sugar, it is anticipated by some that about 500,000
tons of sugar could annually be made in Fiji. Nevertheless it
must be borne in mind that the consumption of sugar in Australasia
is at present only 130,000 tons, and there is competition in supply
not only from New South Wales, the northern territory of South
Australia, and Queensland, but also from Java, over which Fiji has
no advantage whatever. Fiji will probably compete successfully
with Mauritius, but it is by no means certain that the latter
even will be altogether extruded from Australasian markets.

Zabmir, — The hiring and service of Fijian labourers is regulated
and controlled by law. Every contract for the hiring and service
of native labourers for any time beyond one month has to be
entered into in the presence of the European magistrate of the
district within which the intending labourers reside. The contract
states the time for which the service is to be, the rate of wages
(which is generally 4Z. a year, and has to be paid to the man
direct, but always in the presence of a magistrate), the quantity
and quality of the rations (which are daily seven pounds of
yams, or sweet potatoes, or one and a half pounds of beans, or two
pounds of maize meal, and with each, half an ounce of salt and two
ounces of tobacco a week, enough to last an English labourer a month),
and the clothing (in one year four loin-cloths, two mats and one
mosquito curtain), to be supplied by the employer, who further en-
gages to provide proper housing, and to pay the cost of conveying the
labourer to, and back again from, the place he has to work at. Those
who thus engage to work on plantations in their own province or
clan, or in their own island, are under a law altogether distinct from
that which applies to those who engage to work on plantations away
from their own land. These latter have, besides, to communicate with
the immigration department of the Government before leave can be
granted for them to migrate into another province and away from
their own people. Before a planter can engage labourers, he has
to apply to the Agent-General of Immigration, and obtain from
him a written permission to engage the number he requires, which
he has to produce before the magistrate when the contract is entered
into. As, however, great complaints have been made of the misery
and suffering occasioned to the old and infirm, and to the women
and children of certain clans and provinces, through the withdrawal
to distant plantations of an undue proportion of their able-bodied
men, it has lately been determined to further check such contracts.
For as the village community is almost entirely dependent for its

1881. LABOUR SUPPLY IN FIJL 667

existence upon food obtained by tillage of the ground, the departure
of most of -the able-bodied men from its midst not only occasions
want, but also a decrease of births in the clan thus abandoned ;
while the men, being suddenly freed from the wholesome restraints
of their own clan-chiefs and families, fall into irregularities which
are conducive neither to their own well-being nor to that of the
communities into which they intrude their presence. It has been
found necessary to encourage engagements to work near home and
in their own clan, rather than at a distance from it ; and as it was
found that' many of the clan-chiefs had been bribed by those who
wished to secure the labour of their men, in order that they should
compel these to declare that they wished to migrate and undertake
such labour at a distance, such bribery is now most severely
punished. For all those who engage to work on the plantations
in the colony it is further stipulated that the regular working hours
must not be more than nine a day, and the Government inspector
is constantly going round the plantations. The average estimate
of the total annual cost of a Fijian labourer, including food, quarters,
clothing, wages, medicine, recruiting, and returning home, is about
IIL, and the number of such engaged each year is only about 1,200.
As this number is by no means equal to the demand, Polynesian
immigrants (from the Solomon, New Hebrides, and Line Islands)
are employed as labourers in Fiji. (In 1884 there were 5,466.)
About four-fifths of the planters in the colony prefer these Polynesians
to the Fijian labourers, although the latter cost on an average 21. a
year less than the former, and are as a rule healthier. The recruiting
and introduction of Polynesians is regulated by law, and carried out
under Government supervision. Before the close of each year the
planters have to apply to the Agent-General of Immigration for
the number of labourers they will require the next year. When
the list of applications is complete, suitable vessels ai-e chartered
by the Government to go and fetch the number required. Their
passage and other expenses are paid by the Government, which is,
of course, refunded by the employers after the arrival of the
labourers, in three instalments, at intervals of twelve months.
Every vessel carries a Government agent to see that those who are
engaged are in good health, come voluntarily, and are properly fed
and cared for on board. On arrival in Fiji they are put up for
thirty days to look about them, during which time they are vacci-
nated, which they, as well as the Fijians, take very kindly to, as
they are naturally fond of cutting and tattooing themselves.

668 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

They all engage to serve for three years on a given plantation :
those over fourteen receive 3/. per annum with rations. The wages
are paid every six months, as they become due, by the planter to
the colonial treasurer, who takes care of the money till the end
of the three years. But even then it is not paid in coin to the
Polynesian, who would not know its trading value, so the Govern-
ment each year calls for tenders for the supply of all articles of
trade the immigrants care to select from in payment of their wages.
Each labourer chooses, in the presence of a Government oflScer,
whatever he likes until the full figure of his wages has been reached,
and walks off with his bundle unfleeced, and the colonial treasurer
pays the amount to the trader who has supplied the goods. The
employer is bound to supply the Polynesian immigrant with a
suitable dwelling, cooking utensils, food, and medicine, with four
loin-cloths, a half blanket, two mats, and a mosquito curtain. The
rations for the Polynesians must, at least seven days in each month,
consist of seven pounds a day of yams or taro uncooked : for the rest
of the month it must be either ten pounds of sweet potatoes or
bread-fruit, or one pound and a half of beans, rice, biscuits, or
freshly-ground maize meal a day. This last cannot be given, how-
ever, more than fourteen days in one month, and must always be
supplemented by two ounces of molasses. Two ounces of animal
food must always be given with the rice. Besides this, two ounces
of soap and two ounces of tobacco must be given to each every
week. The working hours are nine a day, and five on Saturday.
The average of the total annual cost of a Polynesian immigrant,
including passage out and home, food, quarters, clothing, wages,
medicine, is over 13/. (This was the system at work in 1881 : it
is now, 1886, in a large measure obsolete. Owing to the diminution
of the Melanesian population, and the necessity as shown by
experience for much stricter regulations than existed in 1881, the
cost of Polynesians has risen to a figure which is almost prohibitive,
and the Government now takes no part in the immigration beyond
the control and superintendence of private ventures.) The Fijian
is said to be both mentally and physically superior to the Polynesian,
and for clearing land, building houses, and planting food, he has
no superior. For methodical work, however, such as picking
crops or tending cattle, the more docile Polynesian is preferred.
But as more labour is required to develop the resources of
the islands, since 1878 immigrants from the East Indies have
been introduced, and the rapid overplus of the population of the

1881. INDIAN COOLIE IMMIGRATION. 6C9

Queen's Indian Empire, which so puzzles the Indian economist,
has found outlet for itself here as well as in the West Indies
and Mauritius, and will probably shortly do so in the tropic parts
of Queensland, just in the same way as the overplus of Her
Majesty's white subjects in England have found it in the more
temperate regions of Australia and New Zealand. The coolies
who come (in 1884 there were 4,230 in the islands) are engaged
by an emigration agent in India, and are brought out to the colony
in vessels chartered by Government. Each is bound on arrival to
serve for five years on the plantation to which he is allotted by
the Agent-General of Immigration; but he must complete ten
years' continuous residence in the colony before he can claim a free
passage back to India. During the last five years of his stay in
Fiji he may work where he pleases. For each immigrant allotted
him the planter pays a fee of 15/. in five annual instalments, and
has to provide suitable dwellings, medicine, and doctors. The
Indian coolie, instead of being paid so much a year like the Fijians
and Polynesians, is paid according to results and work done. The
wages are paid in money direct to the immigrant every month,
during the first twelve of which the planter has to furnish him
with rations, for which, however, he may deduct fivepence every
day from his wages. Such rations are to consist daily of one pound
and a half of rice, four ounces of dhoU or other vegetable, one
ounce of cocoa-nut oil or ghee, three-quarters of an ounce of curry
stuff, two ounces of sugar, one ounce of salt. After the first year
the coolie finds his own food, and receives full wages, which is
about one shilling a day of nine hours. The average cost of an
Indian coolie, depending as it does on the variable number of days
he will work in a year, is a little over 16/. There is no difficulty
in working Indians and Polynesians on the same estate. Doubt-
less soon the Chinaman will appear upon the scene.]

There are no indigenous four-footed animals in the island, except
rats and fiying foxes ; it was the Tongans who brought the cats,
dogs, and pigs. These last were the principal meat food of the
white residents in the earlier days of the colony, and although
there are now 20,000 pigs in the island, yet the supply of beef and
mutton (there are 4,000 cattle and 6,000 sheep) has resulted in
the pork being left chiefly to the natives. Crosses between the
Leicester South-down and Lincoln, prove the hardiest in resisting
the influences of the climate. One flock of pure breed merinos
is said to have increased in the last three years at the rate of over

670 CRUISE OF II.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

70 per cent.; shearing twice a year preserves both the carcase
and the fleece ; wool two and a half inches in length is obtained.
There are besides over 11,000 Angora goats in Fiji. There are no
poisonous serpents and only two sorts of snakes in the islands, but
the spiders are very large, of red and yellow, and they glory in great
webs, in which they catch the cockroaches ; the ants also feed on
these latter, and we saw 100 or so of the tiniest dragging away the
dead body of a large cockroach. Lizards are many and varied, and
there are several kinds of tree-frogs. There are said to be 100,000
poultry now in the islands, the Berkshire and China-Poland breeds
have been brought and crossed with Captain Cook's original
stock, much to its benefit; wild fowls abound in the bush;
quail and pheasants have been introduced and are said to be
increasing.

We afterwards had lunch under the trees, sitting on the extem-
porised mats made from green shoots. One of the natives made
fire by drilling a stick on to a flat piece of wood ; this is very hai-d
work, as before you can get a spark you have to twist the stick
very quickly and with much force.

After walking back to the town, we went on through the whole
length of Levuka, the principal stores in which lie facing the beach.
Here you can get all sorts of things, at a price about one-third more
than you pay for the same in England ; but the native if he wants
them has to pay a much higher price. The Good Templars muster
very strong here, and gin is five shillings per bottle, but is only
sold to whites.

At 4 P.M. there was another grand display of mek^ dances, on
the green by Government House. Three of these were par-
ticularly striking ; in the first a large force in green-leaved kilts,
and with great quantities of thin white tappa rolled all about
them, advanced — lead by Batu Timoci ; and after going through
their stampings and swayings in line gradually divested them-
selves of these streamers and piled them as offerings in front of
the Admiral. The other two were war-dances, the Kandavu men
danced a spear, and the Bau people a club-dance. At the end of
this the club was left as a present for the Admiral.

To dinner came Roko Abel (who inherits most of his father's ability,
and has two provinces entrusted to his charge) and Boko Thakound-
rave. They wore kilts of brown tappa stamped with black balls (the
distinctive mark of a chiefs tappa), and white linen shirts. During
dinner the electric light was flashed from H.M.S. Inconstant, and

1881.

MEKl!: DAXGINQ AT NIGHT.

t)71

the elder Roko, when told that the English were tiying to make
the sun, and at present had only succeeded in making a light
brighter than the moon — for such it seemed in the broad moon-
light outside from where we sat — expressed a wish that he might
never die, but live on and see the wonderful times and things that
were in store, and when reminded that according to his present
belief he might, after death, see still more wonderful things in the
life beyond the grave, said, with an air of melancholy, " he should
be quite content to remain and see those this side." There was more

M£KE DANCING AT KIQHT.

mek(i dancing on the green afterwards, and if anything, those by
night were more weird than those by day. It was impossible now
to distinguish the colours either of the dresses or painted features
of the performers, although the moon was shining brightly, and
every now and then the brilliant rays of the electric light from
the deck of the flagship in the harbour were cast upon the scene
and caused the outlines of every leaf and branch of the tropic vege-
tation which hemmed us in as an amphitheatre, to stand out clear
and distinct like trees on fire. As the light flashed from point to
point, now on the shipping in the harbour, now on the town, and
then full upon their faces for a few moments, the Fijians burst

672 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

into yells of the wildest surprise and delighted amazement. In long
hlack masses they wheeled and retreated, waving and brandishing
their clubs and weapons, and then for a time no sound was heard
except the rustle of their dry-leaved kilts shaken by their prancings,
or the heavy and simultaneous thud of their feet brought suddenly to
the ground together. At other times they gave utterance to a series
of yells, or else a sort of plaintive and monotonous sing-song came
from the small band of performers that sat upon the ground, ami
towards which first one wing of the dancing squadron advanced and
then the other, reminding us very much of the corobboree we had
seen in South Australia, of which the mek^s seem the finished and
elaborate development, just as the wheeling and dancing of the
chorus round the altar of Dionysos must have been of the rougher
play of the Greek peasants. As we sat on the mats and looked
upon all these dark outlined figures, in the warm evening air laden
with the smell of the cocoa-nut oil with which their shining glossy
skins were profusely anointed, we seemed to have in reality before
our eyes that which had been shown us both by picture and by
story in the nursery of the doings of the King of the Cannibal
Islands.

Sept. 7th. — Off to the ship at 7.30 A.M., and at school all the fore-
noon. There was a cricket match, Bacchante v. Levuka ; in the first
innings we made thirty- three runs, and in the second 112 ; they made
thirty-two in the first innings, and thirty-one in the second. This
evening there was some dancing at Government House, the Incon-
starWs band played. People wandered in and out through the
verandah into the garden and on to the green, where some Solomon
Islanders performed strange music with panpipes ; each pair played
the same note while they stood facing each other and working with
their bodies ; it was evidently heavy labour.

Sept. Sth.—OS at 7.30 a.m. to ship and school The Rev. Arthur
Webb, the missionary, came to lunch with us, and brought a number
of Fijian books and specimens of writing and translation. Many
natives came alongside in their canoes, and on board, where they
sat about on the deck (it is " make-and-raend-clothes day") lost in
wonder, and feeling, as some of them said, " part of England," much
in the same way as a horse does of his protector and master. The
chief engineer had his electric battery on deck and sent a cun^nt
through a basin of water in which some coins were placed, and
into which on dipping their hands some of them received a shock
they could not understand, but which did not terrify them in the

1881. THAKOMBAU. 673

least. They seemed to think it quite natural that we should be
possessed of these wonderful powers, and called up each other to
see and admire the marvel.

The Bacchante's second eleven, of which George was one, played
the Cleopatra at cricket. They got in the first innings 148 runs ; our
second eleven got in the first innings fifby-nine, and in the second,
thirty. The first lieutenant gave a first-rate lunch to the elevens.
There was an afternoon dance on board the flagship, for the
European residents firom the shore. In the evening we dined again
at Government House.

Sept. 9th. — After breakfast had a long walk with the Grovemor
along the beach — a delightful, cool trade-wind blowing. We went
through woods and open patches round into a bay with beautiful
open beach, and by by-paths under strange trees and bushes with a
queer feeling that if we had been caught walking here some few
years ago we should have been roasted and eaten. We met several
bands of natives marching along the paths towards Levuka, bearing
all sorts of vegetable roots on poles, for the great farewell gathering
of the clans this afternoon. They step on one side out of the path
and go down on their haunches to salute. At one place we mounted
to a sort of white man's cemetery, with European graves, on a high
point looking out to sea, within sound of the coral reef and the
restless sea over which from far-off homes they came here ; they
rest from their labours beneath the shade of tropic creepers, plants,
and shrubs.

Home to lunch at one. Afterwards Thakombau came to say
good-bye. He was born in 1815 (Waterloo year). When a lad of
six years he first clubbed another lad a little older than himself,
and for the first forty years of his life, though now an amiable
and refined old gentleman, saw and did some very queer things —
the strangling of his father's five wives being only one incident.
His father, Tanoa, would return from an excursion round the
island with the bodies of infants hanging from the yard-arras of
his canoe as tribute exacted from their parents. Their taste for
fifty years, all through manhood and middle age, he knew and
relished exceedingly well. On April 30th, 1854, finding his own
gods had neglected him, he gave orders that the big dnims, which
had only been beaten previously to call the people to a great cannibal
feast, should sound to summon his people to Christian worship, and
he first knelt as a Christian with all his wives, children, and rela-
tives. His chief wife, Andi Lydia, had all along been a friend of

VOL. I. XX

674 CRUISE OF H.M.S. BACCHANTE. 1881.

the missionaries, but neither he nor -she were baptised until 1857.
There has been no trace of back-sliding in the old chief since : he
has loyally adhered to the new order. It is to his energy, clear-
sightedness, and fidelity that the advent of British civilisation in
Fiji is most largely due. Of all his family his daughter Audi
Arietta Quildela (flag) inherits most of his masculine energy, and as
Roko rules her district well. Even as we saw him in his old age,
broken, white-haired, and nearly blind, there were still signs of his
old determination and eneigy, and he unmistakably showed in
several ways that high-bred courtesy which seems not only perfectly
natural to the chiefs but also to the people of Yiti. He said that
he never thought he should have lived to see this day when grand-
sons of the Queen of England, of her own flesh and blood, came to
his land, and he wondered how their mother could let them go so
far. He was answered that, whether far or near, Viti was now part
of England.

There came also to dinner to-day the old Roko of Khandavu, a
fine, tall, old man, but infirm : he had to be led up to shake hands.

The squadron played a cricket match against the Levuka club
and made 111 runs, the club in the first innings getting eighty-
two and in the second fifty. There was a rifle match between
seven officers of the squadron aild a Levuka team, the latter
winning easily. Each man fired seven shots at 500 yards range.

In the afternoon there was a farewell gathering on the green,
when heaps of bananas and mat-s and tappa and firuit were brought
and piled up for the squadron, and three very pretty mek^s were
danced, the best being kept for the last. Each day we have been here
these dances have been performed by different clans, and to-day it is
the turn of the western clans. The most elaborate was a repre-
sentation of the story of the lost goddesses, who were represented
by four boys, well oiled and dressed as girls. These were sought
by various bands of dancers, who chanted verses, the refrain of
each being, " Have you seen the goddesses ? " There was also a good
deal of by-play occasioned by the son of one of the chiefs, who
moved in and out amongst the band of dancers with bis wand,
singing and cheekily pretending that he was only teaching his
elders. Two huge men with long spears formed the guard of the
goddesses, and kept fluttering round them. In the midst of the
story of which, even with the help of Mr. Wilkinson (native
agent), we could not catch all the points, there were a number
of porpoises introduced. These were personified by veiled figures

1881. FAREWELL. TO VITL * 675

furnished with large fans, and at was really marvellous how by the
swinging of their headgear, and the quivering of their bodies, and
the waving of their fans together and flapping them at the side,
they were able to represent the actions of the fish, and more
especially recalled the flowing of the porpoise as he plunges
forward to dive beneath the waves. This mek^ was succeeded by
another one in which women only performed. It appeared slow
after the vivacious action of the preceding, and consisted chiefly
of an elaborate hand and fan waving, and swaying of the arms,
head, and body, backwards and forwards and from side to side, all
in beautiful measured time, as they ran, or marched, or sprang
together. in long lines all across the ground. At the end the
Vuni Valu gave George a whale's tooth in the same way as
he had given one to Eddy on the first day. *' This " he said " was
the gift of Viti and not of himself alone. He spoke but as repre-
senting Viti to us, whom he held to represent England. Now
we all feel in Viti really united to Britain, not your equals,
but still united to you and all one." The Queen is about to send
her portrait to hang in his old hall in the Government' House with
this inscription, "Ki vei ira na noqu mai Viti," beneath it, *' To
those that are mine in Viti/' which simple words will touch a chord
in the heart of every native that reads them, for with possession
comes also responsibility, and with a sense of duty performed to
the community the feeling of having merited the approbation of
the head and representative of the whole.

The Governor and Mrs. des Voeux came off to dine with the
captain and several others from the shore. There was afterwards
a dance given at the Mechanics' Institute by the European residents
of Levuka to the Admiral and ofiBcers of the squadron, to which
we both went. It was a great success.

We have spent a very pleasant time here ; the natives have sent
off all sorts of presents to the fleet ; and the English residents
have all been very hearty, and kind. Though living in this quaint
out of the way comer of the Pacific, they are thoroughly English
in thought, feeling and education ; and residence in Fiji seems to
bespeak no severance of the old and fondly cherished ties of home
and kindred.

END OF VOL. I,

='.

Richard Clat A Sons,

BREAD STRKCT BILL, LOUDON.

Bungay, BufoVk.

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